Johnny's Consequences
by breather89
Summary: Sequel to Johnny's Choice. One of the children begins researching the serial killer. But when a tragedy strikes close to them, their lives are turned upside down. Will Johnny tell his awful secret?
1. Innocence

**A/N: I decided to put up a few chapters of the sequel up before Halloween, when I'll put up the rest. I was going for a Young Dracula Halloween story, but decided this would be better.**

 **Why? Let me give you this quote from The X-Files.**

 **'** **It's been said that fear of the unknown is an irrational response to the excesses of the imagination. But our fear of the everyday, of the lurking stranger and the sound of footfalls on the stairs, the fear of violent death and the primitive impulse to survive, are as frightening as any X-File; as real as the acceptance that it could happen to you.** **'**

 **I structured the chapters so some of them resemble books I have read about true crime, so they may get descriptive.**

Mike wondered about Klaus now he had been locked up again. He knew there was another sentence added on for abducting Bailey. But he had been disgusted to find that the sentence was only another seven years and was to be run co-currently. At the same time.

Mike had looked up Klaus' original trial when Bailey had come back. Sentenced to life, but expected to apply for parole when he was in his early sixties.

Mike had been fuming, asking why a psychopath would be freed. The excuse was that when Grunewald was too old to reoffend, he may give information as to other victims.

It was simply a joke.

Mike knew that no matter how badly he felt, other families out there had lost their biological children. Even more wondered if their missing or murdered son was a victim of Grunewald's.

He was looking over notes now. He knew he shouldn't, but he simply couldn't help himself knowing what Bailey had avoided by the skin of his teeth.

His eyes took a quick look at the smiling, chirpy boy sitting at a blue-and-white checked tablecloth in a garden. He had black hair that was neatly brushed. It was summer in the picture. Was it the last picture ever taken of Edward Konig?

The description said Edward had gone to a bicycle shop, to choose a present for his older sister's birthday. He had left the house at 2.30pm and just vanished into thin air by the shop minutes later.

Mike couldn't help thinking of the boy's parents, asking themselves where he was. The police writing him off as a runaway due to his being a teenager, despite the fact everything was happy at home and he only had fifteen Zlotys on him.

Not to mention the disturbing revelation when dog-walkers came across his body on a freezing December morning. The skinny body found over eighty miles from his home.

Mike shut the file. He couldn't bear to look at any more horrors.

But he couldn't help thinking that if Grunewald had succeeded in murdering Bailey, Mike would be in the same nightmare. Looking through 'what could have been' scenarios weren't going to help.

The families had all sent their consolations, of course. But he knew they were all envious.

Meanwhile, Johnny was sitting on his bed in the army barracks. Stationed in East Sussex, they were going through a training course. He'd read about Grunewald. He knew he was lucky, with everybody thinking Grunewald had killed Aidan, but he doubted people would always think so.

As he had read, Grunewald was considered a likely suspect. But some said the farmer didn't give the exact day.

Johnny even found a website where psychics tried solving mysteries. He'd looked up Aidan English and found that one psychic was eerily precise.

He had noted down what the psychic, a woman from Cambridge, had got right.

 _Sudden. Argument. Non-sexual motive. Someone hiding a secret. Innocent child, most likely a female. 5 years. Scapegoat._

Johnny dreaded what would be uncovered. He knew living with this forever would be terrible, but he didn't know what he could do.

Nothing implicated him. Ryan wasn't going to tell.

But Johnny's conscience weighed heavy on him.

Out of all the people that could have been accused, it couldn't have been a better option than Grunewald. A kidnapper and serial killer, the 'Schoolboy Strangler' still made headlines long after his first arrest.

Johnny had read about that evil man. Looked up timelines, of when he had driven across Western Europe, of his routes he took for deliveries, his sick, foul, twisted mind and complete lack of empathy.

Johnny had read about what had been found at Grunewald's 'house of horrors' in a suburb in Dresden. In a chest in his attic bedroom, they had found the emblem from Kevin Cunningham's Scout group, Joel Wedekind's grubby trainers, Gerald Salzwedel's Power Rangers wallet.

In Joanne Gottschalk's garden, after she had confessed everything Grunewald told her, they found two small, folded piles of clothes. The Versailles boys.

They also discovered Felicidad Bonaventura's book, still with his name inside, as well as a DVD that he got for Christmas, both inside his bag three feet below a barbecue pit.

Johnny found articles in English, German, French, Spanish and Polish.

The Polish ones talked about Edward Konig, black-and-white pictures of the village where he'd been found. The German ones were from national newspapers. It hadn't translated, but Johnny knew a little German anyway and besides, it didn't take long to figure out some of the words.

One was a cut-out from a Spanish newspaper.

It had a picture from a Christmas party. A close-up of Felicidad, his long, straight black hair flat against his shoulders, his head at an angle. Johnny smiled. Felicidad looked fun. Then he reminded himself Felicidad was dead.

Johnny read how Grunewald had bragged to Joanne that he had held Gerald Salzwedel as he drove around Germany, taking pictures of forests and valleys.

He had those pictures in an album at his house, each with timestamps to say he had been in those areas. Police were interested in those areas, stating they may 'hold more clues'.

About how he had arrived at half past twelve on the morning of 11th July 2011, parked his van in her garage and fell asleep on her futon, before telling her his latest crime. The abduction of Daniel Fromm and Jacques Van Heel.

Johnny saw their happy faces in the book now, his sweat sticking to the photos.

The left one was of a smiling teen with strawberry blond hair, sitting at a table, in a green jumper. The one on the right was a boy the same age, his hair light golden brown, wonky front teeth and in biking gear.

An early poster on a telephone pole, written in French. Then a picture of Grunewald as he was lead from a courthouse in handcuffs. He didn't look at the direction of the camera, but Johnny could tell he had a small smile on his face.

Did people like Grunewald ever feel emotion, Johnny wondered.

Probably not, he decided. Grunewald had been diagnosed as a psychopath. He had no empathy.

Johnny knew _he_ was not a psychopath.

But he had still killed Aidan. Did that make _him_ a psychopath? He never thought about Aidan much, even back then when the case was still fresh. Did that mean Johnny had no feelings?

Tyler was at the computer in the den. He had seen Mike talking to Bailey in the office. Bailey had seemed pained.

Tyler hadn't asked him about those thirty-six hours Grunewald had held him. But he knew Bailey had nightmares and screamed at half past two in the morning.

Tyler had had to go into the office to flick through a group of papers Mike had. He was horrified to hear about Grunewald driving to Brittany, where he stayed for over thirty hours before burying Bailey.

If the police had been five minutes later, Bailey would have died.

He'd spent a month at a French hospital and was at present suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Tyler felt relief when he thought that it would have been far, _far_ worse if Bailey had been awake during those thirty hours.

He didn't exactly like Bailey. But he never wanted anybody, especially a fifteen-year-old boy, to have to go through this.

Across the sea, Grunewald smiled as he was lead out of the prison cell, into the car.

He was being extradited to Britain so Scotland Yard could talk to him about Aidan English. As usual, Grunewald was keeping his mouth shut.

So many websites and books had Aidan listed as a victim. Honestly, didn't _anybody_ believe in coincidence? But, it seemed, the longer he kept his mouth shut, the more power he held over these innocents.

Tyler went to the library the following day, to read about the cases.

The book, less than two years old, was in the crime section, near the back of the library. He sat at the table, hidden by bookcases. He had a notebook with him, ready to write anything he found that could be useful.

He didn't know why he was doing this. He just felt as if he _had_ to.

 _The Schoolboy Strangler: The Real Story of Klaus Grunewald_ was 253 pages long.

Tyler skimmed over the table of contents. _Chapter One: Arrest in Saint-Etienne-du-Rovray. Chapter Two: 'Bastard Child'. Chapter Three: Orphanage Abuse. Chapter Four: Delivery Driver. Chapter Five: Warsaw Old Town. Chapter Six: Belgium and the Netherlands. Chapter Seven: Truant. Chapter Eight: Confidant. Chapter Nine: Double Kidnapping. Chapter Ten: Possible Victims. Chapter Eleven: 'A Life For Nine Lives'. Chapter Twelve: Aftermath._

Tyler skipped to Chapter Ten. He found Aidan pretty quickly.

'Aidan English, fourteen, was on holiday in the New Forest. Like Grunewald, Aidan had been in care for most of his life.

'The parallels between Grunewald and Aidan are uncanny; both went into care at the age of eight following their parents' arrest, both suffered from dyslexia, both had a love of model airplanes.

'Sadly though, Aidan's short life was over.

'On 21st August 2011, Aidan's care home arrived at the New Forest, where they planned to stay for three days.

'Aidan was only at this home temporarily – he had arrived just a few weeks before and was due to go to a high-security home in a few days. The children were split into groups, Aidan with three other boys.

'Upon climbing a hill, two of the boys wanted to go off fishing. They asked the third to come with them, but he kept on going with Aidan.

'Aidan, in his bullying, cruel way, had made the twelve-year-old carry his bag, stuffed with unessential items, including DVDs and trainers.

'The younger boy's watch fell off as he was unpacking. When he was putting them back in, he accidentally put his watch in as well.

'According to the boy, this was about 2pm. Grunewald is believed to have been at a farmhouse just 500 metres away. It is not known exactly which day, but it was sometime in that week.

'Grunewald frequented a hotel in Portsmouth when he made deliveries to England. Only a forty-minute drive from the crime scene, although Grunewald is not a prime suspect, he is considered a very good one.

'Aidan had an argument with the other boy, causing them to part ways at a fork in the road around 2.10pm.

'The boy found the other two youngsters by a stream, before going back to the campsite. 'The other boys were returned by a social worker at roughly 2.20pm. Park rangers searched the area until 4pm, when the police were called.

'Despite his unhappy situation, police did not believe he ran away.

'He had no belongings on him, was over 300 miles from his care home and had no money. Initial investigators believed he had fallen into a stream or got lost in the woods. However, when his body was discovered by a day-tripper on 15th September, police decided otherwise.

'An autopsy showed he had been beaten around the head and had been strangled, with minimum force. Covered in brambles and branches, scuff stains on his jacket showed he was pushed inside and posed.

'Grunewald became a suspect in 2013 after his trial.'

Tyler breathed heavily. He didn't know how Mike could live with this hidden from them. Tyler guessed that they didn't really need to know, so he'd never told them. But it was still unsettling.

He looked over the other cases. He didn't really know why – maybe he thought he'd find a link to suggest the same person killed Aidan? He would see if the jigsaw pieces fit.

Later, he was on the computer while most of the other young people were playing football or in their rooms. He didn't want to read in front of everyone.

Soon, he had some reason to believe that Bailey's kidnapper had killed Aidan.

Klaus Grunewald was thirty-four years old. He was born on 27th April 1982 to an unnamed woman, who gave him up.

He lived in an orphanage from 1990 to 2000. Afterwards he had moved to Dresden and stayed there for the next thirteen years. Klaus became a delivery driver in August 2000.

There was an interactive map on a crime site, which Tyler found rather useful. It listed all known victims and all possible victims. There were also places that were important to Grunewald.

Grunewald had delivered all over Western Europe. The main deliveries were things like bratwurst or beer or other 'authentic' German food.

It was really no different from American candy being sold in Britain or British fruit preserves and juice sold abroad. Because Grunewald had a small van, as opposed to other truckers, he could go on ferries.

Despite being convicted of nine murders, police forces over Europe believed him responsible for up to sixteen.

The suspected murders, the website suggested, included 'two in England, two in Holland, one in Belgium and one in Luxembourg.' Grunewald had also gone into the Czech Republic and Switzerland, but police forces doubted he murdered in those countries.

Tyler clicked on a link to a profile of Aidan. Unlike the other profiles he had glimpsed, there was only one picture of Aidan and he was frowning.

It named 'Elmtree House, now closed down' as his place of residence. It stated the circumstances Tyler already knew; Aidan and an 'unnamed twelve-year-old' had gone off and got separated. That Grunewald visited the New Forest sometime in late August, with the date unknown.

The autopsy revealed Aidan 'died within three to four hours of his disappearance' and had been killed by strangulation. The body was in the process of skeletonising when found.

In other words, he was killed and the body left there.

There was also indication of 'foul play' due to his being hidden by brush.

Tyler closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

Strangulation and beating around the head. Three or four hours. Hidden carefully.

Whoever had killed Aidan had to be someone without feeling.

Later, Tyler was searching through a TV guide when something caught his eye. An American show, _Expose_ , was going to air an episode about Grunewald. It was at midnight, so Tyler would need to be careful.

The show was about revealing the facts behind big crimes; it had mostly covered cases from America, Australia, Canada and Europe.

The show talked about criminals on Death Row who were going to be executed, cold cases heating up, anniversaries of national tragedies.

It had done a piece on Watergate a few years ago. Another recent one was on a Danish murder; oddly enough, it was attributed to Grunewald until the real killer was proven with DNA.

Tyler decided he needed to watch it.

That night he snuck down and set up the sofa, shutting the doors. Tyler turned the sound off and put the subtitles on, so nobody would hear it. Heart pounding, he crossed his legs and held a cushion close to him as he watched.

The host, a thirty-something American with a tired face and a grey suit and colourful tie, was talking to a guest in the studio.

Tyler knew from programming that this was the part with an expert or a witness or a member of some police department. It would be like this for most of the first part, before they went to the adverts.

"So, Herr Messer, could you tell us a bit about Klaus Grunewald?" the host asked, leaning forward with his hands clasped.

The camera panned to the German, a much older man with salt-and-pepper hair and glasses with thick, black rims. He seemed to look down for a few seconds before he went on.

"Well, as everybody has been told," Herr Messer began, "Grunewald grew up in – quite a _pleasant_ home, if I may be frank – but the thing is his foster parents, the only parents he knew, were arrested in 1990."

"What for?" the host asked.

Messer went on.

"They were arrested for embezzling from their company. As we can see from these photos," several pictures in black-and-white came up of a family on a boat in a hot country somewhere and at a table with a sunshade, "Klaus was actually quite a happy boy."

"Erm, when was this taken?" the host asked, as more pictures were shown.

"This is the last one of Klaus and his foster parents, in March 1990."

"March 1990, all right," the camera went back to the host, seeming interested, his head on one side, "and he was taken to the orphanage…"

Messer replied, "In late May 1990. It was a _crushing_ turn in his life. His family –" Messer raised his hands high, "like that. So – so he had nobody. He went into care."

Tyler swallowed a bit at that.

Grunewald was a care kid. Just like them.

"How long did he stay at the orphanage?" a few pictures, black-and-white and colour, of an orange-brick building in Germany.

"He stayed there until a month after his eighteenth birthday, in April 2000."

Then a picture of Grunewald as a boy. He was young there, maybe the same age as Mo. He had his back to the camera, but his blond head was turned towards it, his eyes squinting. It was in a field, with small balls of forestry some way in the distance.

"As you can see, this is when he was a bit younger than the _majority_ of his victims; this was in 1992 or 1993. But you need to remember that the person who took the picture is very likely to have been a member of staff and, in turn, an abuser."

The hairs on the back of Tyler's head stood up.

Then there was footage, a reconstruction, of children holding hands and dancing in the background, as the camera panned up from the ground.

The entire left hand side of the camera was taken up with a wall and door, with a child actor playing Grunewald staring at them. A voice shouting out his name and speaking German.

Messer's voice played over it.

"In 1994 there was an investigation at the orphanage by German authorities, of suspected abuse taking place there. But, well, nothing came of it. Not until 2003, when one of the social workers there was arrested for another crime and children from there – came forward –"

"But Grunewald had already left by then?" the host asked.

As the footage ended, Messer told them, "The social worker – was there between 1992 and 2003. It was while Grunewald was there and I really doubt that – this man, who cannot be named, was not the only one."

Then the adverts rolled.

Tyler lay back against the cushions, thinking. Maybe, if Grunewald had grown up differently, he wouldn't be as horrid as he was.

Those boys would have been saved.

After the adverts had ended, some footage was being shown, of a guest in America, in a lab somewhere. Tyler had read that this section would tend to be describing the sort of person the episode's subject was about. Any similar cases were often depicted too.

The show went on about the uniqueness of some of Grunewald's crimes.

"Of course," the guest was saying, with some reconstruction footage and snapshots of crime scenes, "there are serial killers who operate trucks, which I think is the closest I can get – to Grunewald. But what I need to say is that he varied between races. Now, _that_ is very unusual."

The host, off camera, asked, "Can you please explain to the viewers?"

The guest was pointing in a scrapbook, which contained photos and maps, "Most psychopathic killers tend to stick to one type of victim; young women or old people or green-eyed prostitutes, etc. Very few tend to vary between race or gender or age.

"But what I find peculiar is that when killers alter between genders, their victims tend to be children. It's really hard to find a serial killer whose _adult_ victims change gender, unless, of course, the motive involved is money or some other type…"

The host interrupted, "But can you explain why Grunewald changed races?"

The guest turned a page.

"As I said, varying across race seems to be extremely rare, even with serial killers who attack adults. The only other one I can think of who targeted more than one race is the Green River Killer. But in Grunewald's case, I need to examine the victims _themselves_."

A picture on the wall, on a large map, of Joel Wedekind, next to a thumbtack by Amsterdam.

The guest was pointing to it.

"As we see, Joel was a rather light-skinned black boy, so he could probably have been mistaken for mixed-race or not even black at all. And as we can see here," he went south-east to Austria, "Felicidad is a pale-skinned Spaniard – some Spanish and Portuguese people are actually fair-skinned, some with blonde or red hair, including Felicidad's mother – so it is entirely possible that Grunewald mistook him for an Austrian."

"Some parts of a serial killer's lifestyle tend to reflect their childhood," the host was saying, "and did you find anything in the orphanage records that indicate his racial preferences?"

The guest had a folder, which he was flicking through, reading. "Grunewald claimed to have been bullied there, mostly between the years 1992 and 2000. I have been able, from the incident records, to pinpoint four children in particular.

"Now, their names have been omitted so I can not allowed to say then aloud, but I can say," there was yet another reconstruction, "that there were three boys and a girl that bullied him.

"One certain incident, from early December 1994, takes place when Grunewald was fourteen. The boys were fourteen, fifteen and sixteen and the girl was twelve. I think it was an argument and a fight over who their social worker…sorry, I just…Grunewald got a black eye and he then called one of the boys a racially insensitive name. Now, the meaning of that name suggests this boy was black."

It went back to the lab and the host asked, "Could that explain the abduction of Joel Wedekind or the recent attack?"

The guest was nodding slowly. "It seems possible."

A little while later they showed footage from French, German and Dutch news stations about the kidnappings in those respective countries. Luckily, the subtitles were an English voiceover.

The host was standing at a grassy path, only fifteen or twenty yards from a road. He was gesturing towards some thick brush by some thin trees. A steep bank lay behind him.

"Right here, almost eight years ago, dog-walkers stumbled across the body of the Schoolboy Strangler's youngest victim. Kevin Cunningham was found at this spot, on Boxing Day, four days after he vanished leaving Scouts only twenty miles away."

A picture of a boy came up on the screen as a voiceover narrated.

"Grunewald had been delivering food to a country club in Falkland, less than half an hour's drive from where Kevin was abducted. To get back to Edinburgh, Grunewald would have had to drive through Kinghorn."

Then a reconstruction. A boy in an orange jacket over his Scouts uniform, leaving a building (presumably not the same one). The camera changed to a view behind some railings.

The narrator spoke and Tyler could feel his heart pounding in his throat.

"At just after 4pm on 22nd December 2008, Kevin left his Scouts meeting and began to walk a 750 yard journey to his home. He never arrived."

Then there was footage from the news, of the area the host had been in. But it was coated in a fluffy layer of snow. The investigator's green high-visibility jackets stood out against it.

 _"Kevin Cunningham's body was put here sometime after heavy snowfall on Tuesday. A full autopsy has revealed that the Kinghorn schoolboy was killed by strangulation and beatings around the head. Scotland Yard have issued a statement saying that they will be offering a ten thousand pound reward to anyone who can give information leading to the killers."_

The programme went on to say that the autopsy gave Kevin's time of death as Tuesday evening or early Wednesday morning – meaning he was alive over twenty-four hours after he was kidnapped.

Tyler thought about that smiling, perky boy from the photos. He felt angry at the thought that this boy had been alive all that time. Held by that – that _wicked_ man. Tyler's only relief was that Kevin was likely asleep for most, if not all, of that period.

Five minutes later the host was talking about 'possible connections to other murders'.

"In February 2013, police forces across Europe joined to discuss the possibility that a man or group of men were abducting children across the borders. Twenty abductions and murders of children of both genders and different ethnic backgrounds were seemingly snatched between France and Poland."

A picture of a German newspaper article. The writing was so small that Tyler wouldn't have been able to read it even if it wasn't in German.

Then some cases were highlighted, the screen going darker in places.

"The cases of Edward Konig, Maurice Rey, Joel Wedekind, Gerald Salzwedel and Torvald Gunvaldsson were included."

Different ones were now lit up, instead.

"These cases were linked to an offender in Belgium," yet another set were lit up, "and these to a ring in France."

The camera lit up three more cases and panned in on them. "But these were suspected to be connected to Grunewald."

Then it cut to a field in Belgium.

The host went on. "Just a few miles from Belgium, a boy was murdered here in 2009. However, DNA ruled out Grunewald in 2014 and was connected to another man, in a Belgian prison."

Then a view of a small town from some fields.

"In 2004, a boy was kidnapped from Lellig in Luxembourg, close to the highway that Grunewald took to Luxembourg City to smuggle cigarettes. The boy was found in a forest several miles north. Grunewald was suspected after his arrest, but last year DNA proved another man had killed the youngster."

A Dutch canal.

"Almost a year before Edward Konig's abduction, an eleven-year-old boy was killed in this part of Amsterdam. His body found in this very canal, the contents of his bag scattered around. But a local man was convicted in 2014."

But, after that, it showed five photographs, one after the other. Aidan's was fourth.

Tyler barely noticed to the first three, when they were talked about. All he could think about was how Mike had felt, being given the results of the autopsy. According to Tee, Johnny came back just after 2pm. Mike and the park workers had started looking at ten to four. Aidan died sometime between 5pm and 6pm.

Aidan must have heard Mike calling for him as Grunewald had him in his van. Or maybe Aidan had been drugged and couldn't hear –

Tyler snapped out of it. He didn't need to think about this.


	2. Crime Drama

Tyler was looking through magazines. He'd gone to the corner shop with Carmen and Jody. As Carmen leafed through fashion magazines and Jody was buying chocolate biscuits, Tyler had seen a headline on one.

 _'Eight Page Special on Klaus Grunewald: Monster of the Franks'_. He felt as if he _had_ to read it. It was some women's magazine that May-Li brought sometimes. When he got back, he opened it in his room, notebook at the ready. He needed to see if there was anything that could help.

He began.

 **Real World Magazine**

 _With Klaus Grunewald's re-arrest, parents all over Western Europe were relieved. Grunewald was on the run for three and a half days before he was spotted in a small village in Brittany. His victim, a fifteen-year-old boy, had been left for dead, but miraculously was found alive despite Grunewald having buried him. Now_ Real World _looks back at his other murders, with crime specialist Leonard Eckstein narrating._

Leonard Eckstein says:

'What we have to realise is that most killers do not travel as extensively as Grunewald.

'We have truck drivers as serial killers, the majority being in the United States, but for a killer like this to do undetected, with no criminal record, is basically unheard of. The ages of his young victims tie in with the accusations from his orphanage in the 1990s.

'What happens in childhood reflects deeply on a person during their adult years. In some serial killers, these can include bed-wetting, starting fires, injuries to the head, whether deliberately or accidental – some were abused themselves.

'Grunewald displayed all of the traits I have described. He was a bed-wetter even before he went to the orphanage and was suspected of having started a fire at his school in 1995.'

 _Convicted of nine murders in 2014 and suspected of up to eight more across Europe, we look at crimes that police were unable to charge Grunewald with, although he has remained a suspect in some of them._

Regis Labelle, murdered in Nesten, Belgium, on 11th December 2001. Going to a friend's house just 300 yards away, his body was found in Walendreef, less than a five-minute drive away. He had been stabbed, most likely with a screwdriver. **Guilty?** 'Unlikely, as this was a different MO.'

Gerben Vann, murdered in Wolenwijk, Amsterdam, on 22nd June 2004. Found in a canal, with the contents of his schoolbag scattered nearby. **Guilty?** 'The MO is completely different. I'd say since he disappeared down a hard-to-find road, he was killed by someone who knew the area.'

Walter Schoonraad, killed in Lellig, Luxembourg on 21st July 2004. He was last seen talking to someone in a white van and his body found in the nearby forest. **Guilty?** 'While I and indeed, many others in law enforcement, believed Grunewald was guilty due to his habit of smuggling things in and out of Luxembourg, with this town being close to both the route and German border, in 2015 the DNA found at the crime scene was linked to a man already in prison.'

Friedhold Erkens, kidnapped from Uddel, Netherlands, on 4th December 2005. Going to his job at a barber's, he vanished on a 750 yard walk. His strangled body was found by the road a few miles south-east during the early morning of 6th December. **Guilty?** 'Personally I think this murder was committed by someone who knew the area and wanted the body to be found quickly as there was no attempt to hide Friedhold.'

Eric Fairclough, abducted from outside a wood in Canterbury, UK on 12th February 2011. Eric's body was found in a potter's field near Canterbury five days later. **Guilty?** 'While we did think that there was the possibility of Grunewald's involvement in Eric's murder, DNA testing in 2014 has proven otherwise and the culprit is now in prison.'

Aidan English, abducted from the New Forest, UK, on 21st August 2011. His body was found beaten and strangled a month later. **Guilty?** 'I am uncertain as of present. While the method of death matches Grunewald's MO, the body was not transported from the crime scene. Aidan is likely to have been murdered where he was found, since no fibres from seating or matting was found on him, unlike the other victims. In addition, the brook where he was found, despite being 500 yards from where Grunewald delivered to, is hard to get to from the farmhouse as there is no connecting path. Besides, if the witnesses were right in saying they say Grunewald leave the farm on the right day, he was going in a different direction and they did not see him as they came back. But we cannot rule him out completely in this instance. I would say there is a 50-50 chance that he may be involved.'

Birger Briefman, kidnapped from Elspeet, Netherlands, on 1st June 2012. He was helping build a treehouse when his friends went home at 5pm. His body was found near Termunten, 140 miles away, in November 2013. His town was the next one over from Friedhold's murder. **Guilty?** 'Despite the gap between Torvald Gunvaldsson and the Versailles abduction, I do not believe Grunewald was responsible for any abductions between these events. Birger was buried and Grunewald did not bury victims until after his escape from prison and even then his victim was buried alive.'

 _The boy who had been taken in Paris lived at the same children's home as the one Aidan had come from, albeit at different times._

There was a copy of an article from a previous edition. It was when Joel's parents were trying to get closure.

 **What Happened to Our Son? Missing Boy's Parents Speak Out**

 _On the fifth anniversary of his disappearance, Millie Wedekind, 43, wonders what happened to her wonderful boy..._

Joel was a kind child. He always put others before himself; when he was seven, he told me that he didn't want to have the latest gaming station for Christmas and that it should go to his brother Paul, then 6, instead. Paul had broken his leg two months earlier and had been in bed a lot.

That day is one I tend not to think about. I prefer to think of Joel as being a happy, kind boy enjoying himself. But on 14th June 2006, my son left the house to go to school at 8.20am. He would have gone with Paul, but Paul was sick that day. I took my daughter, Funanya, then 10, to school shortly after.

I don't actually remember the last thing I said to Joel. It might have been when I called goodnight the night before as I went up to bed when I came back from work. It just breaks my heart that I don't remember the last time we interacted.

When Joel didn't come home by 4.30pm, I was getting nervous. I rang his phone and didn't get an answer. I told my husband Jacob, now 46, that Joel hadn't come home and he went out in the car, looking round and calling. I rang all of Joel's friends.

One of them told me that they'd seen Joel at the Wednesday market a few blocks from our house. This was at 12.30pm. Joel had the habit of bunking off on days he didn't have to go to school with Paul. I should have stopped it, but I just didn't. I really don't know why. I wish I'd told his teachers so they might have dealt with it.

We called the police at 5pm. I was now really worried and frantic. They told me to wait and be patient. Teenagers went missing all the time, they told us. But they still asked a lot of questions. Did he have a girlfriend? Was he doing well at school? Where did he normally go when he skipped school?

I knew they suspected he'd run away. I don't blame them; he had obviously skipped school and had bad grades. But I knew that was ridiculous.

That whole night is a complete blur. I remember waiting up for him, but he never came.

A few days after he vanished, police said they were changing his disappearance to 'involuntary'.

They said Joel had been reported going into a white van by the market. The witness didn't know if Joel climbed or was dragged in. But the witness had told police the day after Joel went missing.

Why weren't we told?

Ten days after Joel vanished, we heard about Drika Slootmaekers. Police told us that she was walking along the Lozingskanaal when she was grabbed by a man in a white van. The similarity of the van to the one the witness had seen made local police suspect a connection.

I couldn't bear to think of my little boy at the hands of a monster.

The next few days were spent in my room or Joel's room, wondering.

 _Is he alive? Is he safe?_

But on 7th July, police found Drika alive in a house in Dronten. While I was very pleased for her family, I felt a twang of jealously.

My boy was still missing.

Police told us they weren't ruling out a link, but they eventually told us there was 'unlikely to be any connection'.

However, Drika's case meant Joel was now in national newspapers. When she had been missing, our local newspaper had suggested to a national one that these cases could be connected. I still have articles filed away in my room.

As Joel was a sixteen-year-old black boy who had skipped school, I had serious doubts that he would have been even mentioned in the press as a suspected kidnapping. But it was and for most of that summer he was in several articles, a number of which were front page.

Over three thousand people searched fields in Barneveld and beyond. I was thankful for all the support, but that nagging question hung over me.

Five years on, police still haven't found him. Every morning he is the first thing I think of when I wake up. I dream of the day we will be reunited. Because whether on Earth or in Heaven, I know we will.

 **Lower Saxony, Germany**

The police were fed up of him, to be plain.

Now they were looking through evidence in files to see if this latest crime could unlock anything about other crimes.

One of the junior officers sighed as he looked at the file on what had been found at Grunewald's home.

Grunewald had buried some of the boys' belongings in his garden. But some he had kept in his room, in a small cardboard box. The police had used the evidence inside to determine who he had taken.

They found EK's front door key, JVH's bicycle pump, MR's emblem torn from his school jacket.

In a sheet of brown paper they discovered DF's earring and GS' neatly folded football shirt. JW's trainers were strewn around, one on its side. KC's woggle and his badges were on top of FB's book, written in Spanish. TG's clarinet took up most of the box, the reed broken long ago.

Held together with a paper clip were articles in German, Polish, French and Dutch, all of the missing boys and the searches.

One photo of KC in his Scout uniform, a cheeky smile taking up most of his face. A missing poster of JW lay on top of an article detailing the discovery of EK's body.

Police had been able to charge him with the murders of JW, DF and JVH and FB, even though they were still missing when he was arrested. The evidence they found was enough.

They had repeatedly asked where those four boys were. Maybe if he complied, he'd get a reduced sentence. They tried bargaining with him. But it didn't work. He was keeping his last secret from them.

But the bodies were found eventually so they didn't ask him anymore.

One of his friends from a tavern in Dresden said that Grunewald had discussed cases of missing children with him.

The unnamed friend said, "I was talking about Gerald Salzwedel, because the body was found relatively close to Dresden. Grunewald told me, 'It's tragic but it's not as tragic as the other ones.' And he just rattled off a list of names."

The friend had said that he had mentioned Joel Wedekind and Aidan English, who were at the time fairly unknown in Germany. He had also talked extensively about Maurice Rey's abduction, giving away information not revealed to the public.

But now Grunewald was ready to talk to police. They had decided to talk to him and he couldn't try to refuse; if he had, they would assume he was guilty of the crimes they were discussing.

He sat across from an officer, who pushed a photo towards him. A young boy, maybe a year younger than Gerald Salzwedel.

The officer said what Grunewald was thinking. "Gerben Vann, murdered in an Amsterdam district, in June 2004. His body was found in a canal and belongings scattered around," he lay back on his chair as Grunewald peered at the picture, pretending to examine it, "younger than your victims, but fits everything."

Grunewald smiled slightly, eyes locking with the officer as he handed it to him, "I never drowned any victims."

That was all Grunewald would say on the topic, as the officer tried coxing him. Then he sighed and handed over another.

This one made Grunewald grin inwardly. The long hair, frown, stare. The British boy.

Grunewald liked playing with the law. He didn't say anything.

After the third photo and giving little information, the officer sighed and, standing up, called for a guard to take Grunewald back to the cell.

In Ashdene Ridge, Tyler was walking past Bailey's room when he noticed the light was on. He could hear Bailey talking. As Tyler listened, he heard Mike.

"Mike, this – does this mean I'm gay?" Bailey asked, in an almost child-like whimper. It sounded as if he may cry.

Mike was reassuring him, soothingly, "It doesn't, Bailey. Trust me."

Tyler felt he should move on, but he couldn't seem to walk.

Bailey asked Mike, softly this time, "Mike, do it – am I still a virgin?"

Mike told him, almost fiercely, "Bailey, whatever anyone's said to you, you _are_ a virgin. Don't listen to what the other boys on the team say."

Tyler walked past back to his room. His mind racing as he thought about Grunewald.

Grunewald had felt weak as a child. That had caused him to be angry and when he abducted the boys, Tyler wouldn't be surprised if Grunewald saw the other children in them. To Grunewald, he wouldn't be simply hurting children; he would be hurting his bullies.

It seemed to be a horrid pattern in killers. Tyler read several articles from online magazine archives and books from the library and documentaries.

He learnt about children who wet the bed and started fires, learnt about children abused by their parents or by older relatives or trusted adults.

He read about those who moved between jobs and those who kept steady jobs. He learnt about wife-beaters and those who hid their feelings from their families, sometimes only coming to light when they were caught.

Tyler read on those who were bullied, those who were bullies and those who kept to themselves.

He read about men who targeted children, men who targeted women, men who targeted men. He read about women who poisoned their families, women who helped their spouses kill women and children.

He read about those who hit close to home and those who travelled long distances as truck-drivers or homeless.

He read about those who had been arrested before their spree and those that had no record.

He read about those who took chances and those who chose their victims in advance. He read about killers who broke into people's houses, killers who picked up hitch-hikers, those who pretended to be police or security guards.

Those who discarded victims by the road or in fields, those who buried victims in their garden.

It was scary, but Tyler thought he _had_ to, to find how Grunewald worked and if he'd killed Aidan.

He started looking in the magazine again. This one was from someone connected to Grunewald's Scottish victim.

 _Kevin Cunningham's cousin Morgan, 19, has revealed exactly what happened when the Kinghorn boy disappeared._

I was in Auchertool when I heard Kevin was missing. My aunt, Jennifer Cunningham, had called Mum at 9pm to say Kevin was missing. Mum had come into my room and told me.

I was only eleven and didn't understand. I knew about stranger danger and I thought Kevin was a smart boy. But I didn't know how bad it was.

Mum tried to hide the news from me and my sister, then 9. But I saw a snippet of searchers in the fields near Kinghorn. I also heard a helicopter above my house on Christmas Eve.

Christmas was a solemn occasion. My parents gave us our presents, but we didn't feel like opening them. I wanted Kevin back.

On Boxing Day, Mum brought us into the living room and told us that Kevin's body had been found across the Forth. I wept. I thought maybe he'd got lost, somewhere, cold and trying to find home. But now I knew he was dead, there was no other option – someone killed him.

It wasn't until some years later that I knew what had happened.

Even then, it was heartbreaking to think of my little cousin suffering like that.

In 2013 I came home from work at a garage and Dad was in the hall.

"They found someone who may have killed Kevin." He told me.

I learnt that Klaus Grunewald had delivered to a country club 20 miles north of Kinghorn on that day. He had left the club at 3.35pm and drove south. He had brought petrol at a garage near Loch Leven before midnight the next day. He took a ferry to Hamburg at twenty past three on Christmas Eve. It seemed to fit.

I was relieved when I heard Grunewald was convicted. Dad said, "They should lock him up and throw away the key!"

I was furious when he escaped in August. When I heard he was caught everything seemed to rush back. I couldn't keep it in. I kept crying for hours at a time.

I visited Kevin's grave whenever I feel upset. I just weep when I think of the wonderful boy that the world lost. I will make him proud.

 **Lower Saxony**

An officer read the email. It was translated from English and it was slightly shaky. Still, he knew what Scotland Yard wanted.

They wanted Grunewald to come to England to be charged for Bailey's abduction, assault and attempted murder.

They hadn't said it specifically, but he knew they wanted to charge him with Aidan's murder.

Bailey was sitting in the office as Mike stood over him. "Bailey," he breathed, "hitting James is not acceptable."

Bailey sneered, "Why should I care? He was insulting me."

But Mike just raised his hands. "Bailey, hitting someone means you're no better than them."

Bailey looked up, brow furrowed. "But they were being cruel. They were blaming me!"

"I know," Mike looked into Bailey's eyes, "believe me, I know it's hard..."

"You don't know anything!" Bailey snapped, rushing out of the office and storming up the stairs.

Mike read the report he'd received from Bailey's football team. Bailey had been kicked off the team due to fighting the other boys.

But then Mike saw all the details next to his notes. He knew this was just wrong.

James had said Bailey asked for it. Going off from the hotel and going down an alleyway. Matthew had told Bailey that 'since he didn't fight back, it wasn't assault'. Bailey told the others that he was drugged, to which Nicholas had snapped, "Shouldn't have taken it then."

William had then called Bailey 'gay'. They'd all mocked him and then James had gone, "Bailey, what really happened? 'Oh please, please, please, Mr Killer, I'll do anything because I'm a whiny, gay twit and I'll do _anything_ because I ask for it by being stupid.'"

At that point Bailey punched James and he fell to the ground. James needed stitches and the football coach said Mike would pay the hospital fee.

Mike had told the coach that he wasn't paying the fee when James started it and that Bailey was going through a really difficult time.

The coach had replied, "Well, he shouldn't have wandered off in a strange place or talked to a stranger. He asked for it."

When Mike said Bailey had cried at night and kept waking the house up with his screaming late at night, the coach had retaliated, "You're supposed to be looking after him. He should man up."

Bailey just stayed in his room and cried. A few hours later, Jody and Kazima went to him. They looked at each other when he saw them and then Jody mumbled, "We – found these articles from the internet. We think it – might help. You're not alone."

Bailey silently sat on his bed as Jody read the first one.

"In Suffolk, this girl, Kimberley Acker, she was attacked by a teacher. Her classmates just kept bullying her because for some reason, the local newspaper printed her name when talking about the assault. This was in 2003, before social media. The school expelled her because they didn't want 'any reports of bullying' at the school and because they'd lost one of the best members of staff, according to the headmistress. She had to move and was too shaken to go to his trial so all charges were dropped and he went back to teaching at the school."

Bailey asked, still looking at the ceiling, "What happened to her?"

"The article said the newspaper issued her an apology but the school never did. The headmistress said she couldn't be responsible for what her students said outside of the school grounds. I don't know what happened to her; the article was from three years after the attack."

Even without looking at Bailey's sad face, Jody could tell this hadn't helped him much. So Kazima read hers out loud.

"In France, there was this case. This ten-year-old girl, Hannah Deschamps, she disappeared from...Conde-sur-Marne, in February 2013. She was found three days later at a house by Lac du Der-Chantecoq, a French lake. She was mocked by her classmates, who said she'd asked for it and she asked to go with them."

Bailey frowned. "I think I remember seeing that on the TV. Dad and I were eating dinner and it came on."

Kazima nodded. "The man and woman who took her had killed seven other children. She was lucky. They found three bodies in the back garden."

Bailey just sighed.

"These are all female. Did you find anything on male victims?"

Jody looked at another page.

"A fifteen-year-old in Denmark was attacked by a man in 1995 in this coastal village named Veddelev. The man was a neighbour who invited him in. The neighbour said the boy got drunk and then attacked him. Nobody believed the boy. His house was egged and covered in graffiti. Bricks were thrown through the window and milk bottles smashed. He was called gay. At the trial, the neighbour's lawyer kept asking the boy what he had worn, how much he'd drunk, if he flirted. The boy was too nervous and kept stammering and forgetting what happened and he gave conflicting statements."

Bailey turned his head, looking concerned. "And what happened?" he asked quietly, dreading the answer.

Jody sighed. "The neighbour got off free. The boy didn't receive counselling. His family believed him, but he didn't get any help. The village didn't believe the boy for nearly twenty years."

Bailey asked, "Why twenty years?"

Kazima answered, quickly, "Two years ago the neighbour's garden was dug up and they found bodies. All of them from after the trial."

Bailey just held his head in his hands, before looking up.

"Thanks for all your help, girls. If – if someone's house was broken into or a pyramid scheme, no-one would ask those questions. It's unfair."

Tyler was checking a book on unsolved murders. It included the case of Joel Wedekind, citing his disappearance. Quite a bit of the chapter described missing white woman syndrome and how this was what probably made his case noticeable. The disappearance of a young white girl not long after had caused Joel's case to get more attention, since Dutch police thought the cases were linked.

It went with early days, then into the ongoing investigation. The fact Joel was shoved aside as time went on. This had been mostly due to a lack of leads.

Then it said that in January 2013 Interpol had released cases they believed 'were committed by the same man or group of men across several European countries'. They said this was due to similarities between cases.

Edward Konig, Maurice Rey, Gerald Salzwedel and Torvald Gunvaldsson were all included with Joel, as were some cases Tyler had already heard of. The investigators at Interpol had said that these crimes all seemed to share similarities. Some had the same fingerprints and DNA at crime scenes.

There was a fibre from Maurice's jumper from his home town in Belgium that was found near where Gerald Salzwedel had been found.

Similar DNA had been found at the dumpsites of Edward and Gerald. The DNA had been hidden under Edward's zip-up cardigan so it had been hidden from animals. The police had said that the two samples 'if not from the same culprit then from two culprits that are related'.

Tyler frowned at all the information. Sure, the police did what they could, but he knew that they must have missed something.

Grunewald had no record. That could have been it, although he didn't know why they hadn't just interviewed anybody from his company. It said that they suspected the culprit used a van or truck as part of his job.

Maybe there were too many companies.

Tyler lay on his bed as he thought, staring up at the ceiling. How did a man like Grunewald think? Did they ever think about who they had hurt?

 **A/N: As with my last story, place names are chosen at random.**


	3. Psychopath

Tyler was leafing through the magazine when he began to wonder. It said that Interpol believed in February 2013 that someone or a group of people were abducting, assaulting and killing children. He decided to look up the others.

He didn't really need to; he just thought it might shed some light on this type of killer. Also, he was interested.

He was on the computer when he found some pictures, translated in a British newspaper.

'Could Kailash Shah's murderer be the same person who took these children? Interpol have released a statement saying they believe the same person or individuals acting together have been responsible for abducting, murdering and disposing of children in France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Poland and Germany.

The suspected murders go back over a decade and have the following features: a child was abducted, a vehicle was used and they were transported some way from their homes.

Regis Labelle went to his friend's house in Nesten, Belgium, on 11th December 2001. Found dead in Walendreef the following day.

Edward Konig went to a bicycle shop in Warsaw Old Town, Poland, on 14th June 2002. He was found dead in Emilia, Poland, in December 2002.

Ane Dittmar was last seen exiting Copenhagen Central Station on 27th December 2002. She was last seen with a man as they entered the car park. Her body was found on 8th January by a field in Nordby.

Sieghild Hellewege-Acciai was last seen as she left a park to return home in a 240 yard walk in Wemmel, Belgium on 21st December 2003. Missing.

Gerben Vann was last seen in Wolenwijk, Amsterdam on 22nd June 2004. He was found later that day in a canal near his home.

Walter Schoonraad was going to see a friend on 21st July 2004 in Lellig, Luxembourg. His body was found nearby three weeks later.

Franziska Plaschkes was last seen talking to a man in a car in Ergensund, Netherlands on 15th November 2004. Her body was found three miles away in a field the next morning.

Maurice Rey was last seen in Ranst, Belgium on 27th September 2005 when he played truant from school. His body was found in Hasselt, Belgium.

Joel Wedekind was last seen in Barneveld, Netherlands on 14th June 2006 as he played truant. He was last seen being dragged into a white van. Missing.

Pierre Leroy was last seen as he rode his bicycle in Macau, France on 4th May 2008. Missing.

Anneke Van Aalsburg was coming home from work at a swimming pool in Bramming, Denmark on 17th May 2009. Her body was found in a local park two days later.

Gerald Salzwedel was last seen at a park in Brunswick, Germany on 10th August 2009. His body was found near Nossen in September 2009.

Torvald Gunvaldsson was walking to a neighbour's in Egholm in 7th December 2009. His body was found near Arden a few weeks later.

Annette Viannay was last seen going to a friend's house in Valleroy, France on 28th May 2012. Her body was found in bushes that afternoon.

Kailash Shah was sent by his uncle to get snacks in Zevenaar, Netherlands on 8th February 2013. His body was found in a nearby canal on Valentine's Day.'

Tyler lay on his bed with the light dimly on.

As he drifted off, something began to appear in his head.

It felt as if he were standing right by it as it happened.

A brown-haired boy was walking down a street with some cobbled pavement. The buildings around him were terraced and brightly-coloured. There was the sound of chattering some way off, as well as what sounded like German folk music.

The boy arrived at a shop with bicycles in the windows. He looked around and called out, "Herr Gomolka?" then a voice shouted, "We're closed. You have to come back tomorrow."

The boy seemed unfazed, just shrugging and walking outside.

As he did, a white van drew up beside him in the thin street, blocking him from view from the other side. Not that anyone was standing opposite them.

Grunewald wound down the window and asked, "Kid, you know the way to the Royal Palace?"

The boy turned and then started pointing. "Yeah, it's just down there, then –"

But Grunewald already had the door open and was pulling the boy in by the front of his t-shirt. The passenger seat had already been flipped down and Grunewald had lifted the terrified boy off his feet.

The boy was kicking and yelling, but Grunewald held a large, tight hand over his mouth and was forcing him into the back.

As Grunewald held him down, he felt in a small shoebox nearby. The boy scratched and struggled, but Grunewald had a pill bottle opened and was tipping five tablets into the boy's mouth.

Grunewald kept anxiously looking over his shoulder outside, worried somebody saw him. But soon the boy was unconscious. Placing the child on a mattress, he threw a thin wool blanket over him, the boy's legs in a wonky position sticking out underneath.

Grunewald climbed back into the passenger seat, did his seatbelt, shut the door and started up the engine.

He drove down the curving street, no-one having seen what had happened.

Tyler woke up, sweating and heart pounding. Could he really have seen what he thought he saw?

Turning the light on, he opened the book on his bed. He looked at the picture of Edward Konig. A shiver went down his spine as he peered at the photo. It was the boy in his dream.

He turned a few pages, to one he hadn't seen before. A picture of the bicycle shop.

The one from his dream.

What did this mean?

 **40 Miles South-East of Newcastle**

Grunewald was on a police boat, heading to Newcastle. He was going to be tried for the murder of Aidan English. Ridiculous, when he considered it. Then again, he couldn't blame everyone else; he had stayed quiet about the boy whenever he was questioned.

Sighing, he closed his eyes.

He could be free soon. He had it all planned out. He had stolen some keys from an officer when the man had fallen over. It had been a split-second decision, but now he felt as if he could control his life again.

He was still pretty young and he could start a new life. Britain was as good a place as any. True, he preferred the German forests or Austrian mountains, but Britain had large moors and hills and valleys. It seemed like it might go his way.


	4. Dreams

Tyler was lying awake when bed when he seemed to drift off again. Turning in his bed, his duvet askew, he seemed to see something as he felt himself become lighter as he lay still there.

A boy sat by a pond opposite an old-fashioned mill, partly hidden from view by barren trees, almost stripped of leaves. He wore a small blue coat and black trousers, with mud-stained trainers. He checked his watch.

It was time to go back.

He stood up, holding his schoolbag and walking down the thirty-yard path to the main road. He crossed the motorway at the zebra crossing, not knowing that when he stepped onto the pavement on the other side, he caught someone's eye.

Grunewald was planning to go straight on. But now he'd seen something great. Something burst inside him that he hadn't felt for three years. It had been so long! He _needed_ it now.

He turned left as soon as the truck in front had gone on and then drove slowly down the street.

He couldn't take the boy now; there was a mother taking her two young children down the street some way behind. He wait to see where the boy went.

Grunewald scowled as he thought of missed opportunities he'd had over the last three years. Children walking to school. Teenage boys standing outside shops talking to one another. Teenagers at skate parks. He often felt like driving up and asking when he lost his nerve or someone came up.

One time he'd been at the sea not far from here, over the border in Holland. He'd approached a boy in his car and was going to ask, but was waiting for that annoying young girl with him to walk away.

He didn't mind having two victims. But a girl wasn't his type and anyway, she had been too young. Then she'd dragged him down to a shop and Grunewald knew his chance had gone.

But this boy was on his own. As Grunewald slowly turned his car around the corner, he thought he'd wait. He got the map from his glove compartment and held it up, ready. He then unlatched the sliding door inside the van.

He asked the boy, "Excuse me, but do you know the way to Brussels?"

The boy pointed. "That way, you're going the wrong way. That road could get you to Brussels."

Grunewald thanked him, showing his teeth when he smiled. Then he asked, "Need a lift somewhere?"

The boy shook his head, "Sorry, I'm nearly home."

He began walking again. Grunewald stepped down and held one arm around the boy's waist, pinning his arms to his sides, clasping the other hand over the boy's mouth. He used his foot to push open the side of the van and climbed inside, letting the boy's arms go free as Grunewald slammed the door.

Pushing the boy onto his stomach on the mattress, he pushed his head into the blanket. He threw the blanket around the teenager's head before grabbing his hands and tying them behind him.

Pulling the blanket off, Grunewald quickly replaced the blanket with a pillowcase, tying it around the boy's head.

Grunewald then got into the driver's seat and turned the key, driving off and away from the crime scene.

Tyler woke up again. Staring at the ceiling, he wondered why.

Why had he seen the kidnappings of Edward Konig and Maurice Rey?

Maybe he was being told who Grunewald was responsible for. The magazine and book had suggested quite a few other victims before Maurice's abduction in 2005. Maybe this ruled them out?

Tyler had no idea where this was coming from; but it seemed to be genuine.

If he saw Aidan's murder, did it mean Grunewald was guilty?

He didn't know. He just didn't know anything. He just turned over in bed and wondered what would be next.

 **10 Miles South-East of Newcastle**

Grunewald was lying back in the chair he was sitting in. he was wondering exactly where this all began. Sure, he had seemed happy at his parents' home. But he rarely thought about now. It had been over a quarter of a century.

But when he was there, hadn't he stared at animals that had been run over, wondering how long it would take for them to have died? Even at that age, he knew something had been wrong with him.

He hadn't cared about right and wrong at his school. If someone had stolen his pencil case, pushed him or called him names, he had sometimes told the teachers.

But other times, he pushed them over in mud and hit them or even stole their things. He never gave back Bruno Hasek's pencil or Leopold Hartmann's new shoes.

But the orphanage, that was worse.

He began to think about exactly what happened there, back in the early nineties. The Soviets had just let go of East Germany and they were beginning to see the wondrous new American things like McDonald's and gum and bright clothes. But he hardly saw any at the orphanage.

Instead he suffered.

 **1993**

Klaus was sitting on a sad-looking red sofa as he tried to ignore the other children calling. They said they were playing cowboys and Indians. He was the cowboy and they said they were going to take his shoes.

He thought if he stayed inside, they wouldn't hurt him. Friedrich told the children that he would beat them if the house got dirty.

Klaus stared at the two children playing on the floor; Marta and Gustaf, the only children here younger than himself. They were seven and nine years old while he was nearly eleven. They were playing with a Noah's Ark and ignoring him.

Something learnt here early on was if you didn't interfere, you wouldn't be hurt.

Then Klaus heard a roar behind him. He turned, eyes wide. Seeing Rupert, Johann and Reinhold, he stood up and began to back away. In their headdresses and paint, they somehow seemed even more fierce than normal and that was _something_.

But Reinhold jumped onto the sofa and bounced off onto Klaus, roaring all the time. The other two boys ran up and then started cheering.

Friedrich, tall and demeaning, came in and blew his whistle loudly. All the children looked at him as he barked, "Why did you come in here? You are supposed to be _outside_!"

Johann replied nastily, "Klaus came in here to hide from us."

Rupert and Reinhold nodded as Friedrich stormed up to Klaus. Grabbing him by the shoulder, he snapped, "Because you came inside, you caused this mess. Go to your room!"

Klaus argued, "But they were going to take my shoes!"

Friedrich sneered, looking down at Klaus from the end of his nose, "If you had stayed outside, you wouldn't have interrupted Sunday playtime! Now, your room!"

Dragging Klaus by the arm, he pulled him up the stairs, Klaus barely managing to keep up and his ankles banging against the carpet.

Klaus never liked this part. The punishment for making a mess indoors was to be tied to the bedposts in the room the children shared.

The unfortunate child would stay there until bath time. If they had stayed there longer than three hours, they would be allowed the leftovers from lunch or dinner.

Klaus sobbed quietly as he was left alone, spread-eagled on his bunk.

He couldn't let this happen.

He could _not_ let this happen.

 **25** **th** **December 1995**

Klaus was at the table as the other children heartily ate Christmas dinner. Due to having been bad earlier (answering back to an adult when he was really asking what time the orphanage would go ice-skating), he was sitting with the little kids at a separate table.

Klaus couldn't believe it. He was thirteen, he shouldn't sit at the children's table! The younger children just giggled too much and made rude noises and asked stupid questions.

He looked around at the other children at the table. Otto, Fritz, Brigitte, Hedwig and Marta were between four and ten years old and read or flicked sprouts or stuck their fingers in butter.

Klaus glanced at the grown-up table. Besides Friedrich and Liesel and Werner, who all looked at them with stern faces and made sure they behaved themselves, there was Gustaf, Bastian, Max, Margareta, Ralf, Reinhold and Johann, all polite and silent.

Sometimes they looked over at him and smiled gleefully, knowing Klaus was punished.

He couldn't look at them. He closed his eyes. Sprouts were thrown in his face.

He tried not to remember the last happy Christmas he'd had; he'd been with his parents and they went skiing in Austria. He'd drunk hot cocoa and watched videos.

That seemed like a lifetime ago. Could it really have been just six years?

 **April 1997**

Friedrich and Werner had blown the whistle.

Klaus' heart raced as he pounded up the stairs, pushing past Fritz and skidding round Max as he pushed down the corridor. He'd learnt to run fast as he'd gotten older. His once useless legs were now lanky, carrying him further and further away from the horrors he knew Friedrich and Werner gave.

As he headed into the bedroom, only beaten by Hedwig, he dived onto his bunk, messing up the cover.

Turning round and watching the other children come in, he could hear the blood rushing as he saw the younger children dive in, helped by Margareta. She didn't care any more, she'd told him.

Then Friedrich and Werner reached the room, as Gustaf grabbed his bedpost and pulled himself onto the bed. Werner smiled and shook his head.

"Gustaf, you just missed it." Then he turned his head to examine his prize. "Johann, you better go to the night room. You're last."

Johann, who was six inches shorter than Klaus despite being two and a half years older, held his head and walked after them.

Friedrich patted him on the back as they walked out and Werner turned to the children. "You have a half hour of television and then we'll turn off the light. Night!"

After he shut the door, Klaus, like some of the other children, just went under the duvet. He felt a mixture of pity and envy when he thought about Johann.

Pity because they all knew the price for coming last. Klaus had got better as he grew up, however.

Envy because he knew Johann wasn't going to suffer for much longer. He was going to work at a ski resort in the Alps when he turned eighteen. Klaus still had another three years.

 **500 Yards South-East of Newcastle**

"Grunewald!" a voice called out from the other side of the door, banging on the steel. Grunewald's eyes jerked open and his heart pounded with shock. "We're about to arrive."

Grunewald looked back as the officer walked off.

Nearly ready.

Tyler was up early. He couldn't get to sleep, so he just lay there with his thoughts until first light. He went down to get a drink. Thankfully it was now the holidays. He had enough time to look at all this.

He sat at the table, resting his head on his hand, wondering. Exactly what could he do? No-one would believe him. Maybe it was just to calm him and not have him frantic over all this.

It was times like this he wished Gus was still here.

He was back in bed. He didn't know why; it was nearly midday. Maybe it was because he'd been awake so long. He just closed his eyes and left himself drift away. It was not unsurprising that he received another vision.

A black boy was standing by a market stall. The stall had an orange-and-white chequered tablecloth and a canopy above it. Some other stalls along the street did the same. It all seemed very quaint and village-like.

The boy was wearing cotton brown trousers and a red football top, with some Dutch team printed on. He asked the middle-aged, motherly-looking woman behind the stall, "Can I have a peach, please?"

She smiled and handed him one. "That'll be eighty cents, Joel."

It must be a village, Tyler thought, if everyone knew everybody's name. Joel walked further, his teeth digging into the peach.

Turning a corner, he sat on an upturned crate by some bicycles and bins. Behind some restaurant or coffee house by the look of it, with steam coming out of the windows and the sounds of shouting and running feet.

Joel had finished the peach within thirty seconds and was now standing up and wiping his hands on his trousers.

A van slowly drove right by him, blocking most of the exit. The door opened and then Grunewald strode out, tall and demeaning.

Grunewald held the map open and stood next to Joel. Even with Grunewald's tall stature, Joel was almost as big as he was.

"Excuse me," Grunewald asked, smiling politely, "do you know the way to the A30? I seem to have gotten lost."

Joel looked down at the map. "It's that way, then you just go right."

"Thanks," Grunewald began to wave his hand around, as if it were nothing, "I'm just getting a bit lost. German in a strange country, you know?"

Then he looked back at his van, acting as if it were a favour.

"You...need a ride anywhere?"

Joel nodded. "I need to go to the park. It's a bit out of your way, sorry."

Grunewald was just playing along.

"No worries, just hop inside."

As Joel started to go near the passenger seat, Grunewald instead opened the side door. Joel was now looking very nervous. He tried backing away, but Grunewald held one hand by his collar, one hand around his neck, dragging him inside.

Just as he did so, the door to the restaurant opened. A man in white overalls with some chopped carrots gazed, heart pounding, as the side door pulled shut and Grunewald climbed over to the front, speeding off.

The waiter ran back in, carrots on the ground, shouting for the head chef.

Tyler woke up. He remembered the book saying that a witness had seen Joel being pulled inside, but that the police didn't look into it for several days. Tyler was certain Missing White Woman Syndrome was behind that.

He didn't think it was fair. If a white woman vanished, or a little cute girl or boy from a middle-class family, the media would go nuts. If Tee or Floss or the twins vanished in suspicious circumstances or someone witnessed them being kidnapped, they'd get front-page focus, regardless of being care kids. If anyone else here did, they'd be lucky if it was featured in the national news.

But still, at least Joel got a little attention.

Tyler lay back and wondered what he'd see next. If he did. He was sure he was being shown who Grunewald took. But why?

He didn't know.

As he closed his eyes and drifted off, another one appeared before him.

A boy with long hair was walking out of a house with the porch light on and nothing on. It was dark, not even a moon. The boy held a torch in front of him and shone it at the ground as he walked along the path.

A dog barked in the distance. Dim lights shone behind low mist. The sound of waves splashing against the shore.

The boy looked ahead as he had walked just under 1200 yards from the house. A building stood cut off by a hedge. The lights of a vehicle came close. The boy stood out of the way as it drew up by him in the lay-by.

The van door opened and a light was on inside. Grunewald sat inside and opened a magazine, lying on the mattress with the blanket on, a flask by the door and a tin of biscuits on the floor.

He started reading, before he looked up and saw the boy was staring at him. He asked in bad Danish, "What are staring?"

The boy shook his head. "Sorry. I go."

Grunewald put down his magazine and peered round the side.

This was a boy. With the haircut and the bad light, he thought it had been a girl. Tall, striding. Just like the boys at the orphanage. His hair reminded him of Max's. Max's hair had been long and dirty.

Grunewald put the magazine down and then walked up to the boy as he approached the road, asking, "Do you know the way back to the mainland?"

The boy began shaking his head as Grunewald turned him round, an arm around his neck. The boy dug his heels into the ground and hit him, but Grunewald soon pushed five tablets into his mouth while dragging him to the van.

The boy stopped fighting. He was now stiff and heavy. Grunewald groaned as he lifted him over the edge of the van and inside, flopping him onto the mattress. It had been three and a half months since the last kidnapping.

Still, he couldn't miss an opportunity.

Tyler woke up again. His belly rumbled. How long had he been asleep? It had only seemed like a few minutes.

But he knew he'd seen the kidnap of Torvald Gunvaldsson. Grunewald's oldest victim and the only one snatched from an island.

The book suggested Grunewald had driven back to the ferry and just managed to get on the five-fifty boat.

Torvald was only reported missing the next morning, as his mother had woken up and called the house he was going to.

To be told by her son's friend that he never arrived.

Tyler could see why this had been listed as a runaway case.

Torvald had a backpack of clothes with him, left his phone at his house and the ferry had left the island shortly after. Anyone who thought otherwise said he might have fallen off the cliff.

They only guessed it was murder when his body was found near Arden, discovered by a local man driving to his ex's to deliver Christmas presents.

Tyler didn't know how the families could still keep on living, knowing the person who murdered their child was living free. He wouldn't manage.

In the prison car, Grunewald was smiling. Due to availability, only one officer was taking him there. This meant Grunewald was on his own in the back. Sliding the keys to the handcuffs, he tried to think of a way to escape.

Soon he got them free and then looked at the officer's bag on the passenger seat. It was open, the can of mace sticking out. This was perfect.

Grabbing it, he sprayed it in the officer's face, causing him to skid on the country road. Luckily, they stopped before they crashed, causing Grunewald to lean over, pulled at the release, pushed the officer out and drove, doing his seatbelt as he went ahead.


	5. Cruel

Cruel

Tyler lay in bed as something appeared in front of him. It was another vision. He wondered which boy it was this time.

A blond boy stood by a desk with a green shirt, with badges plastered over. A group of other boys were all looking directly at a man dressed in green.

The boy was the tallest of them by at least five inches; indeed, when people met him, most assumed he was in Year Seven or Eight. His clothes were almost too small for him, even though they fitted the other boys.

The man was talking about what Christmas was about and how it related to the Cub Scouts, when the boy was walking out of the room.

If he got home now, he'd be just in time for his sister to finish tea. He hoped it was pasta. He liked pasta and anyway, he thought as he trudged along the snow in the dark, it was cold.

He walked out of the gate, padlocking it behind him. It was easy; the lock was left open when the cleaners arrived fifteen minutes before his group were let out. He just needed to snap it shut.

As he walked down the street, he started wondering. It was the first day of the Christmas holiday tomorrow. He'd been talking with the other boys about presents.

Alexander wanted some toy cars. Cameron wanted some DVDs he'd seen at the shops in Glenrothes. Andrew and Dylan were getting action figures.

The boy wanted to get roller skates. Then he and his sister could go around the skating rink with the view of the sea. She thought being fourteen was so big. Well, she would have to take him if he got skates.

As he drove near the crossing, he didn't see a van inching closer.

Grunewald had been fed up. He had to deliver close to Christmas and go on a stupid boat. Sure, he liked the takeaway meatball sandwiches and the coffee, but he couldn't stand English food.

He'd just delivered and now he was going down to the sea. Maybe get a nice view before it got too dark. This country was almost as freezing as his when it came to winter.

As he had driven back from the beach (after realising it was closed), he had seen a kid under the streetlamps. He had put his iced coffee down (which hadn't been iced when he brought it) and set the van into gear.

As Grunewald approached, just before the main lamps overlooking the roundabout, he rolled the window down.

"Kid," he called, "you know the way to –" he checked his map, "Burntisland?"

The boy looked up and simply shook his head. But then Grunewald asked, "Want a lift, kid? It's cold and I don't want to see a young lad get ill."

The boy shook his head again. Was he mute? Grunewald attacked as the boy turned. He lunged for the boy, gripping his waist and held a tight hand over his mouth. The boy was kicking and tried to get free, but he was no match for this tall German.

Twenty minutes later, the boy's sister would call the community centre and be told that Kevin was missing. Then she'd call the police.

But Kevin would be long gone.

Tyler woke up in a cold sweat. He knew Kevin had been young, but it wasn't until he saw it for himself that he realised exactly _how_ young.

Grunewald had already managed to dump the car at the side of the road slightly outside Newcastle. He wanted to run, but he felt as if he should take advantage of the situation. He'd stolen a car and was now cruising around Newcastle.

Ah, good place to stop.

There was a secondary not far off. He'd be able to choose one. Perhaps a kid that was bunking off. Perhaps a kid by himself. No matter, he'd be able to have his life.

That morning, after Mike dropped off the children at the school, he heard his phone ring. May-Li.

He drove off round a corner and then parked, before picking it up.

"May-Li?" he asked, but she quickly butted in.

"Mike, it's the police. They said Grunewald escaped from custody last night. He'd come here to be questioned. Mike, he's very close to Newcastle. He was seen going south but I don't know what happened..."

Mike interrupted, heart pounding, "May-Li, where did he run off from?"

"He was near some trees on a country road south of here. Just...come back here."

Little did he know that Grunewald was watching as he drove off.

Grunewald moved closer. He knew the tricks. He shouldn't look too interested. He'd picked up a newspaper from a local shop (literally 'picking up') and was now browsing. He barely understood a word of it.

Inside the school grounds, Mo watched as the others walked to class. He was waiting for Ben Bagley, an older boy who said he'd show Mo around. They were in drama together and Ben had started to grow fond of him. Today he was going to show Mo a new scene he'd written for the upcoming school musical.

Ben, a tall boy with dark curls, came in from the street, grinning.

"Hey, Mo," he stood by him, "ready for auditions?"

Mo answered, "I don't know. I just want to act. I'm sure you'll get the lead."

Ben laughed nervously, holding onto his backpack. "Well, if you must know, I wasn't planning on going to school today."

Mo frowned. Ben didn't look ill.

"I just – wanted to go to the park. You know, do a bit of sketching, take in the wildlife."

"But you're rubbish at sketching. And I need to go to school." Mo interrupted.

Ben held out a hand and grabbed Mo's arm lightly.

"I don't want to do it alone." He complained.

Grunewald looked over the edge of the newspaper as he saw the two boys, just outside of the gate, hidden from view. They seemed to be arguing.

If he drove up now, he'd block off any prying eyes from the other side of the road. Cruising up, he got out and then unlocked the boot.

Mo shouted, "Why should I bunk off?"

Ben looked sad, attempting to manipulate him. "I thought you were my friend."

Almost immediately after he said that, Mo saw tall Grunewald behind Ben.

Mo edged back, unsure of what would happen. Grunewald then held a tight arm around Ben's neck and tugged him back. Ben clawed in surprise and dropped his bag.

At this point, Grunewald had rehearsed, one of two things would happen. The other boy would try and pull his friend away or run for help. Either way, he would shout. He didn't actually care if he got two boys; it was just a small bonus.

Mo did the first option, shrieking, "Let Ben go!"

He was pulling, as was Ben, but Grunewald was stronger than either boy. Soon, he had pushed Ben into the boot, holding his head down on the matting as Mo kicked Grunewald on the legs.

Grunewald slammed the lid shut as Mo screamed, "Stranger! Stranger! He has Ben!"

Grunewald never had this before. The kid could recognize him. Then the police would definitely suspect him. No way otherwise.

He lifted Mo up, holding an arm around his waist. Mo kicked and hit and bit him, but Grunewald soon had him on his back on the back row of seats. Grunewald pulled the pills from his pocket, snatched from after a visit to the chemist's, tipping two into Mo's mouth. Mo spat one out before Grunewald clamped his large hand over his mouth.

When Year Twelve girl finally turned the corner to see why there was shouting, she saw Grunewald come out of the car. Then she screamed.

Grunewald almost fell over with shock and dived into the car, driving off at a speed well over the limit.

When Mike was called a few minutes later, he had arrived back at Ashdene Ridge. When May-Li started running to see him, she saw him drop the mobile and slump to the ground.

The teachers at the school had called Carmen, Tee, Tyler, Ryan, Kazima, Bailey, Jody and Harry from their classes to the headmistress' office.

They were told that Mo had been abducted.

When they were told the description, as well as the call from May-Li about Grunewald, the children reacted differently.

Carmen and Tee were wide-eyed, before bursting into tears. Kazima looked ahead, her fist clenched, trying to stay brave. Tyler and Jody looked horrified and uneasy. Ryan and Harry gripped hands, their faces pale.

But Bailey pushed past them and ran to the toilets. Nobody asked what he was thinking.

They knew.

Mo woke up, his head dizzy and his sides aching. In his blurred vision, he could see the backs of car seats.

A thin blanket was over him, hiding him from view. He looked at the window. He could see trees going past; big, bushy ones. They may be outside Newcastle by now.

He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but his stomach rumbling suggested it had been a long time. He tried to get up, but found his hands and ankles bound with a rough cord.

He wondered where Ben was. Probably still in the back. Mo turned his head to see if he could glimpse his abductor. He heard the man stop the car.

Mo's heart thudded in fear. What was the man going to do? He knew they shouldn't go off with strangers, but no-one had ever told them why. He'd come to the conclusion that people who didn't like children had taken them and killed them. But why? What was the point?

Had this happened to Bailey?

Was that going to happen now?

The man lifted the hood of the boot. Mo heard Ben shrieking.

But the man growled, in a German accent, "Come here! Now!"

Mo could just see the man holding Ben by his collar and pushing him.

Mo tried sitting up, but he just fell down. He heard a gate swing and then the man pushing Ben over some grass. They had gone into a field. Mo just lay there, trying not to cry.

A few minutes later, the man came back to the car, opening the door.

Leaning down, he snarled, "Thought you'd wake up." He ripped the tape off Mo's mouth and leant in close. Mo could smell the strong coffee on his breath. "You stay quiet, or else."

Pulling Mo from the car, Mo peered around. They were on a small, quiet country road. Just the field. Ben was on another blanket, part of it covering his head. Ben's tie was around his hands, strapped behind him. A belt was around his waist.

Mo was flung down onto the thick grass as Grunewald knelt by Ben.

Mo begged, "Please, please don't kill us."

Grunewald smiled slightly. "Hey, why would I do that?"

Mo stammered, "B-Because p-people like you – they murder kids."

Grunewald mused this over. This kid was spot on. He impressed him. But the older boy was just fighting. This kid used his brain.

Stomping over, he lifted Mo up by the arm and dragged him back to the car, Mo's legs catching on the tarmac under him.

Grunewald pushed him into the boot and then held the lid. He slammed it down before walking back to Ben.

He wouldn't let the boy see.

That night, Tyler wasn't the only one awake. Mike was consoling Harry, Floss, Finn and the twins. Upstairs, Carmen and Kazima lay awake as they listened to Bailey's sobs. Ryan was wondering if Johnny knew already. Jody was trying not to imagine that piece of trash hurting Mo. Tee was slightly sobbing.

But Tyler just felt that Mo was fine.

He didn't know what it was.

Maybe it was related to the dreams. But he somehow that Mo was going to come back to Ashdene Ridge.

He settled down in bed and tried to sleep. Maybe he'd see something.

As he drifted off, he did see another.

A boy with red hair was in a park with high, black railings. He was holding a coke can and took small sips from it. Small trees aligned the side of the path.

The boy was some yards ahead of a car park. Inside, he could see Grunewald at the wheel of his van.

Grunewald glanced up, putting down a book. He peered out at the young boy walking down the road.

No-one was around. It would be easy.

It had been two and a half years since his last abduction. Oh, he had tried. He had followed boys coming home from school, glanced as they played football, sometimes even watched them as they walked in the local park.

He'd spied boys in many countries. A few times he had even approached them, only for something to happen. The boy would become suspicious. A witness would come too close, whether they saw him or not. He'd lose his nerve.

Whatever happened, he hadn't kidnapped anyone since KC in Scotland, far too long ago.

Now, he got out and walked up to the boy. Standing behind him, he asked, "Kid, you know the way to the motorway?"

The boy looked startled and seemed about to run. But Grunewald was too fast.

Grabbing the boy around the waist, he held a tight hand over his mouth.

Pushing the boy inside the back of the van, Grunewald pushed him down onto the mattress as he slammed the door shut with his leg.

The boy squealed, "Let me go!" and was kicking, his eyes screwed up with a few tears streaming down.

Tyler froze.

He felt fury rush through him as Grunewald started up the engine and it faded.

Tyler woke up in his bed, frowning and gritting his teeth.

He thought of Mo, out there, lost and alone. He just wanted him home safe.

 **20 Miles North-West of Harrogate**

Grunewald stopped in a lay-by as he took a rest. With the younger boy locked in the boot and the older boy shivering in the backseat, he had an exhausting day. He'd driven all around County Durham and North Yorkshire, occasionally stopping in fields or lay-bys.

He hadn't taken the younger kid out once. It was something about him that made Grunewald shy away.

He now needed to rest. He hadn't slept in almost eighteen hours. True, he'd had longer stints when he was at the orphanage, but this was different.

He wondered what all the other children thought when they saw his name on the news. Did they expect it of him, or was it just a surprise?

He wondered how long he'd keep the boys with him. He thought it over before he decided that he'd drive as far south as he could, before abandoning them and stealing another car. Perhaps he'd sneak on a ferry to the Isle of Wight or France.

He wondered. The younger boy, did he really want to hurt him?

Sure, he had seen Grunewald's face, but he wasn't really interested in him. It wasn't the first time – he'd once approached a boy in Hanover, only to change his mind suddenly when he decided he couldn't be bothered.

Why hurt some kids and spare others? He really had no idea. Maybe it was because he'd actually talked to the kid. He was getting too close.

The next day, Mike got a call from the police.

Mike hadn't gone home that night. He'd stayed in the office, waiting, dreading. Now, two officers sat across him.

"Mr Milligan," the female started, "we spotted the car on a CCTV camera in south-east Harrogate around six am this morning. The plate matched up and we have reason to believe Mo Michaels is alive."

Mike dared to let himself think Mo would be fine. But he asked, "How did you guess that?"

The male officer coughed. "Mr Milligan, the camera clearly shows a boy in the passenger seat conversing with the driver. If Grunewald wanted to harm – then he hasn't done it yet."

Mike snorted. "He held the Versailles boys for two whole days before he murdered them." He snapped.

The male officer tried reassuring him, "But we believe that Grunewald is heading south. It makes sense, most of his deliveries to England were in south counties. We're putting up blocks everywhere, all checks. People have been told to watch out for anything suspicious; it's the biggest news story. Don't worry, we're certain with the current safety measures we will bring Mo back safe."

Mike had heard all the stories. He knew this was where the abductor would panic and kill them, or evade the police.

But he didn't even care if Grunewald remained a fugitive; he just wanted Mo home.


	6. Missing Mo

Missing Mo

Mike was seething in the office.

It had been nearly twenty-four hours since Mo had been kidnapped. Mike knew he couldn't forgive himself if something happened. He'd thought they were safe.

Then again, so did the parents of Grunewald's victims. The parents of many other missing children, over the world.

Some never saw their children again while they were still alive.

Mike was desperate not to be like that.

Grunewald was now driving down the east coast. The older boy was still in the trunk, the younger one asleep in the back. He'd given him a cheese-and-tomato sandwich laced with sleeping tablets. He didn't want to try and talk to the boy. He didn't want to familiarize himself with him. If he did, he might get soft and he'd learnt ever since he was a little kid that if you were soft, you never went anywhere and others hurt you.

He knew their names from the newspaper he'd picked up. Mo Michaels and Ben Bagley. He was surprised that Mo was only eleven years old; he looked much taller than any eleven-year-old Grunewald had seen.

Grunewald groaned as he drove down another country lane, this one around fifteen miles north-west of Skegness.

He'd been driving almost non-stop since he'd arrived in Britain. He was now exhausted.

He'd worked out his plan. He'd shave, wear different clothes, use a British accent. He'd been enough times and saw enough movies to work out how to fake one.

Then he could be free to hurt as many children as he wanted.

The car parked on a grassy mound outside a stables. He knew the owner would probably come out and tell him to get lost, but for the moment, Grunewald just needed a rest.

Hundreds of miles north, under his bed, Tyler lay awake, anxious.

The children had been allowed some time off, but he had just stayed in his room. He sighed as he closed his eyes and let sleep overtake him.

He began to dream.

Tyler saw two boys leaving a terraced house, one holding a bicycle. He recognised them from the book.

Daniel Fromm and Jacques Van Heel.

He heard a woman shout, "Remember to pick up milk later!"

Daniel turned round and called, "We won't, Mum!"

Then, as they walked down the street, Jacques holding his bicycle, they began to talk.

"Where to first?" Jacques asked.

Daniel shrugged. "I don't mind. Mum's working late tonight so we can stay up late again."

"You sure?" Jacques asked. Daniel nodded, "Nina stayed up all night at Easter."

Jacques told him, "She was twenty-one."

Daniel shrugged. "Well, let's see how everything goes."

Then it went misty and then the scene changed. Tyler was taken by surprise – this hadn't happened with other visions. But then he saw the two boys entering a petrol station.

Daniel walked up to the counter after he picked up a packet of biscuits. "Can I have these, please?" he asked.

The tired shopkeeper scanned them and told him wearily, "Two Euros."

Daniel paid and they left the store. Tyler looked at the clock and saw it was almost ten pm. What were their parents doing?

It was obvious that these boys came from the type of family that had to work late. They must have been left at home many times. Enough that they'd begin spending their evenings wandering the streets.

To be easy prey for a psychopathic killer.

The boys went round to the back of the station and then sat down, munching on the biscuits. This was probably their meal for the night.

A few minutes later, Tyler saw a van drive into the pumping station. The hairs on the back of his neck flew up when he recognized Grunewald.

Grunewald was tired. He'd gotten up before dawn to drive from Dresden, had delivered food to a party at the palace, then had a rest before he had to drive the way back.

Sometimes, he really didn't like driving to all these different towns. At least he got paid quite a lot for it.

He drove his van to the side, hidden from the road. He just wanted a rest.

Then he saw something in the corner of his eye as he parked.

Two boys, one sitting on a doorstep, one leaning against a bicycle, eating a packet of biscuits.

He took in their scruffy clothes and unwashed hair. He knew that only a small percentage of Versailles were poor, but it was still a shock to see these two.

He opened the door and asked, "You boys need a lift?"

The two looked at each other, before they walked up.

Grunewald asked, "Where do you want to go?"

Daniel cheerily asked, "How about the park in Le Chesnay?"

Grunewald set the van into motion and trundled on. Daniel sat by him in the passenger seat, Jacques on an empty crate in the back.

Soon, Grunewald had diverted a bit and stopped outside a burger van he'd spotted on the way in. buying three cheeseburgers, he took them inside and undid the greasy white paper.

"Here boys," he smiled kindly at them, "tuck in."

But when he'd got the burgers, he'd sprinkled some of the pills inside, after crushing them with his fingers, spreading it inside the mustard. He'd set his aside next to a cola can, now slotted in the cup-holder.

The two boys sat down on the floor to eat, talking and laughing. Grunewald just hoped they'd fall asleep quickly.

Within five minutes, both boys were leaning on the mattress.

Grunewald took his chance. Going into the back, he quickly bound the boys' hands and threw the blanket over them. Then he set his van into gear and drove off.

Tyler woke suddenly, staring at the ceiling. It was as if he had been shoved awake. What had shoved him?

Was this all a meaning for something?

Something was certain, however. It would be a while before he had cheeseburgers again.

Mo woke up, groaning at the light that streamed in.

They were parked in a lay-by next to a field. Mo wondered why he'd stopped here. He hoped he wasn't going to bury Ben here. He knew Ben wasn't dead, but Mo didn't want the child killer to.

He sat up and saw Grunewald sitting on the grass, on top of the blanket.

Mo knew this could be his chance. He could get out, run away, call for help.

But he didn't know if anyone was nearby. Grunewald would still have Ben in the back. Plus, he could drive up pretty quickly and grab him again and Mo didn't know what would happen if Grunewald did that.

So Mo just watched as Grunewald sat down, eating a chocolate bar and thinking.

When Grunewald turned and had come back into the car, he looked at Mo from the driver's seat.

"I like you, kid." He spoke quickly. "I'm going to let you go. But you gotta be good or I change my mind, all right?"

Mo, too shocked to speak, just nodded.

He didn't want to think about Ben. Wouldn't Ben want him to get away? But he decided to just stay quiet. If he could, he might get the police and they could arrest this man before he murdered Ben.

Mo just sat back and held his legs by his chest. He didn't want to make Grunewald angry. If he did, who knew what would happen?

He watched as Grunewald began driving away, not knowing what would soon happen.

Tyler had stayed in bed the entire time since they'd been sent back. He was getting annoyed now, as the novelty had worn off and the bed was getting uncomfortable.

But he just felt sleepy again. He didn't know why. All he knew was that it was late and his eyes were slowly closing.

He saw a dark street, with lights coming from the houses. A blanket of snow lay on the ground. Not the pathetic, thin layer in Newcastle, this was a few inches deep.

A wheelchair came round the corner, with a boy sitting inside.

The last victim, Felicidad Bonaventura.

He saw the boy's long, black hair and his gloved hands pushing the wheels along. He seemed content with himself.

Tyler remembered he read that Felicidad was on holiday with his parents from some town north of Barcelona. That they had been staying with his uncle and his family in Salzburg.

That Grunewald had been in a nearby ski resort, simply by chance.

A van came trundling down the street as Felicidad stopped at a zebra crossing. Though that wasn't really needed, as there weren't any cars around.

Felicidad pulled a jumper around himself as he looked at the traffic lights.

Next to them, Grunewald got down from his seat. This was too easy! This kid couldn't run or kick.

He asked, "Kid, you need help?"

Felicidad nodded. "I do."

Grunewald asked, "Where you headed?"

Felicidad looked at the end of the road, several feet in front of them.

"I need to get to a restaurant. It's not too far." Then Grunewald helped him into the passenger seat, putting the wheelchair in the back.

Felicidad seemed a bit wary, but he still sat down. He leafed through a book he'd been carrying in his bag, before placing one hand on the latch.

As they passed the restaurant, Felicidad said, "It's that way." But Grunewald sharply turned a corner and Felicidad began banging on the window, screaming. He tried winding it down, but Grunewald pulled him back by placing an arm around Felicidad's neck, one hand on his collar.

Felicidad struggled, but Grunewald was too strong. Felicidad still punched Grunewald in the eye as he slipped into a sleep, however.

Grunewald groaned as he placed a water bottle against it. Boy, could that kid hit.

Then he started getting back into the driver's seat as it began fading.

 **Two Miles North of Southampton**

Mo woke up again. Not long after they'd gotten going, Grunewald had stopped and brought him a cheeseburger from a van. Mo had gotten sleepy after eating it and now, as he woke, he began to see the sun was quite high up, meaning it was around midday.

He saw they were entering a busy motorway and he asked Grunewald, "Where are we?"

Grunewald replied as they passed a sign, "Take a look."

Mo did so, groggily. Then he asked him, "Where are we going?"

Grunewald told him, "It's something I had in mind."

Grunewald did not enjoy this. He needed to go somewhere he knew to dump the older boy. Then he'd drive to a small village and let the younger boy go.

He knew this wasn't what he usually did, but this kid reminded him of himself. A quiet, strange child.

Except Grunewald had been brought up the wrong way. This kid was what Grunewald had never been allowed to be.

He'd had to drug the burger because they were getting close to the M25 and he wanted the kid hidden when they went around London.

He had the right place in mind where he wanted to go.

It was the New Forest


	7. Rescue

Grunewald had parked in a car park in the New Forest at about half past five that afternoon. It was dark and no-one was here. He was overlooking some hills and in daylight, he might have seen for miles.

But he left Mo sleeping in the car as he dragged Ben out from the boot.

Ben struggled in his arms, but Grunewald pulled him off to some large bushes about a hundred yards away.

He ignored the boy's cries and pleading and begging. He'd heard it all before.

At about six, he began walking back to the car. Drive the kid to the park ranger station in the morning, then start a new life. He lay back in his seat, trying to settle down.

Grunewald looked up from the backseat of the car. He could hear someone calling him. Anxious, he sat up, knife in his hand.

But when he kicked the door open with his foot, he could see no-one. No police. No park rangers. But someone had called him.

He turned and saw something that chilled him to the bone. A boy with black hair, standing tall with piercing, stern eyes that seemed to go right through Grunewald. A soft wind blew his hair around.

He could barely whisper what he said next. "Torvald Gunvaldsson."

The boy said, firmly, "You saw me and then went when my back turned. You pulled me in. Twelve hours. Twelve hours my family were looking for me, while I was still alive. The last thing I saw on Earth was the dirt road. Believe me, I'm thankful."

Grunewald snarled, pointing a thick finger to thin air. "But you're dead!"

The boy simply asked, "And who killed me?" No emotion. Just a lingering question.

Grunewald started going back to the car when he saw a boy standing on the bonnet.

Young Edward. "I was your first."

"You were." Grunewald murmured.

Edward went on as if he hadn't heard him. "You were driving through that Warsaw suburb when you saw me. You'd kept your feelings hidden from everyone. Years of suffering, you'd hidden it until you saw a sweet young teenager walking down the street and it just _clicked_."

Grunewald now began to get very afraid. He looked from left to right, trying to find a path, someway to run up the hill.

But Edward looked down at him, judging, biding his time.

"A sweet, innocent boy," Edward went on, "who only broke his voice in March. You thought about all that time you were mocked, teased, decided to pour all your hurt into a stranger."

Grunewald snapped, "I couldn't help myself!"

"You _could_ , Klaus!" Edward shouted, the shock almost sending Grunewald off his feet. "You could."

Then another voice made Grunewald turn. Much closer, a boy with wavy dark brown hair stood near the three-foot cliff. "But you never kept yourself under control."

"Maurice Rey, I never liked you." Grunewald scowled, as if saying he didn't like a flavour.

Maurice called, as Grunewald started walking slowly up the hill, "Are you refusing to look at our faces? Put yourself as far away from blame as possible?"

But Maurice appeared in front of Grunewald, some way further up the hill. "You couldn't bear to look at me, in those seven hours you drove around east Netherlands with me in the back of your van."

Grunewald snorted, uncaring. "I'd hidden my urges since I'd killed. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Maurice went on. "You tell yourself that. Try to shed all the blame from you. So you don't feel guilty."

At the top of the hill was a small, freckled boy with copper-coloured hair. He had sad, innocent eyes that looked up as he fidgeted.

"I'd gone to the park to get chocolate for my little sister," he spoke with an almost mouse-like whisper, "she was only eleven years old. She didn't understand when she heard I'd disappeared and then I was dead. _I_ couldn't understand it. I watch her as she goes to all the meetings. I'm proud of her and I didn't want to go before my time. Don't you think about who we were?"

Klaus just went in another direction. He saw two small figures as they shimmered, becoming visible.

In unison, those two boys asked, "Snatched from a rest stop. Lost. Dumped like garbage."

Jacques asked him, "Do you ever think about the families we left behind? I do."

Klaus crouched low on the ground, as thunder rumbled ahead and the wind blew around him. Ahead, he saw a tall, black boy of over six foot, staring dumbly ahead. "All I did was skip a day off school," he shrugged his shoulder, "was this too much to ask?"

Klaus snarled, looking at his victim with discontent. "You should have stayed in school."

"Maybe. But maybe you shouldn't have been looking for me in the first place."

The other boys were all up here now, some together, some alone, but all various distances from Grunewald. A boy with cream-coloured boy went forward.

"I'd made that journey over two hundred and fifty times," he squeaked, "why was it that one time? Why did you ruin Christmas for my family forever? Just leave my body in the forest to be found on Boxing Day? Did you care one bit?"

Then the last boy came forward, appearing in front of Grunewald as if he were smoke. It could have been the cold fog on the ground. But Grunewald guessed it might not be.

He told Grunewald, "Thing is, your time's up."

Felicidad spoke as the other boys came closer. "You'll go soon. Close to where Aidan died."

Grunewald argued, "I didn't kill him."

Felicidad answered, "We know. But there is only one winner."

Grunewald looked at them all. "Who killed Aidan?"

Felicidad gestured, pointing at a hill just across from them, coated in thick trees. "One of the other kids. It was an accident."

Then he told him, "He was scared. Twelve years old. But don't worry, he'll be punished."

Then they all disappeared before Grunewald could turn back. He trudged over to the car and saw Mo, still asleep. Grunewald shivered and wondered. He needed to leave.

When Mo woke up, torchlight was shining in his face. He groaned, squinting.

Then the torch was taken away and a voice called, "He's awake!" Mo looked around in the dim light. It was the inside of an office. A man crouched above him and another was on the phone. They wore ranger uniforms.

The man above him reassured him, "My name is Ranger Jimmy. Do you understand?"

Mo nodded. Then Ranger Jimmy asked him, "Are you Mo Michaels?"

Mo nodded again. Then he asked, "Am I going back to Ashdene Ridge?"

Ranger Jimmy answered, "Well, the police will have to come first. You're in the New Forest, in Hampshire. Now, do you know where Ben Bagley is?"

Mo shook his head, nearly crying.

Ranger Jimmy told him, "We saw you a few feet from the ranger cabin. We'd heard a car and the gates are all shut. My colleague went out and he saw you on the ground. It was as if you'd been shoved out of a vehicle."

Grunewald was speeding fast. He needed to get out of here before the rangers found him. Problem was, the paths were twisting and it was dark. Then his eyes widened as he crashed. Crashed into an iron gate.

He was knocked out immediately. But the rangers, now searching for Ben, heard the crash and found Grunewald inside.

The ranger said it seemed as if Christmas had come early.

Mike was told by phone at nine that night. He and May-Li cried and hugged in the office. They called everyone down and they all asked questions.

Tyler just stood still. He wondered about the dreams. Did this mean they were over?

Mike went along to the police station to be told that Mo was found in the New Forest at roughly seven that evening.

He asked, "Is Mo coming back tonight?"

The officer replied, "Err, no, Mr Milligan. It's getting late and he's five hundred miles south."

Mike then paused, before he dared to ask, "Has he been..."

The officer shook his head. "There's no physical evidence."

Mike just breathed, "Thank Heaven." Then the officer opened a folder he was carrying and then looked up with concerned eyes.

"Mr Milligan," he spoke slowly, "although this may seem like the worst possible time, a few months ago we went over the case of Aidan English again after another autopsy was given. We wanted to double-check he had definitely been murdered. But the autopsy puts his death three hours earlier than we thought. Mr Milligan, you have a water-tight alibi, as do Miss Conway and Miss Beaker. The others are a little shaky, but eventually we came to a conclusion."


	8. Media Sensation

**A/N: Warning. This chapter may be sensitive to some readers.**

 **Columnist, 21** **st** **October**

When Klaus Grunewald, 34, was rearrested last night after his escape on Tuesday, police were looking for the body of Ben Bagley, 15. Everybody said it was a miracle when Anthony 'Mo' Michaels, 11, was returned unharmed outside a park ranger station in the New Forest.

Like everyone else, I believed both boys had been killed. Over 45,000 police officers from across the country were checking up on leads, from as far north as Aberdeen to as far south as Plymouth and Brighton. Unlike most child abductions, the abductor was known and a wanted criminal.

So when I heard Mo was alive, I breathed a sigh of relief. And when Ben's body was found under a bush only 850 yards from the ranger station, I felt angry.

But this is not the first time Grunewald (also known as 'Schoolboy Strangler', 'Monster of the Franks' and 'German Gacy'.) has been linked with the New Forest. Only a stone's throw away from where Ben was found, fourteen-year-old Aidan English was murdered.

But now police are saying that two unnamed children from his care home are responsible for the brutal murder.

Personally, I never believed Grunewald to be responsible for the murder of Aidan English. If he was pushed for time, he would probably have abandoned the boy closer to Portsmouth, as he did with Kevin Cunningham three years previously.

Grunewald's modus operandi is to move the body as far away from the abduction site as possible. Aidan was probably killed where his body was found. For similar reasons, I did not think Grunewald responsible for the murder of Regis Labelle in Belgium in 2001, or that of Gerben Vann in the Netherlands in 2004.

I had previously talked about Grunewald back in 2013 and again in August when he escaped. But what I am going to talk about now is young Aidan's demise. I suspected someone he knew must have killed him, another child at the home. Of course, we have seen this tragic scenario before. Bootle in 1993. Edlington in 2009, which thankfully had a happy ending. Across the ocean, you could say we had a similar situation in Columbine in 1999.

But we will have to wait and see for the court's verdict.

 **Recovery Centre, Derbyshire**

Bailey sat in the small booth at the recovery centre. Mike had suggested this to him a few weeks ago and now they had driven down. Mike said he needed to get away from everything.

May-Li was looking after the residents and Mo was safely back, although he mostly stayed in his room. According to May-Li, he was reasonably unshaken and the child psychiatrist said he was very likely to make a full recovery.

Bailey couldn't help thinking that was because he hadn't been abused.

Now, he sat in the booth in the large hall. It had been built like the changing rooms in a swimming pool. This was so no-one could judge each other. But he'd seen them all when they came in.

As expected, he had been the only male. Their ages ranged from a year younger than him to a woman in her sixties. There were fifteen others. White, black, a Chinese woman, a Korean girl and an Asian girl with a long black plait almost to her knees.

The lady in charge of the meeting told everyone they had to write something about their situation or what their attacker said. Soon, it was his turn.

Bailey looked at what the others had written in the notebook.

"He had a screwdriver."

"He asked if I wanted good grades."

"If you tell anyone, you'll be taken from your family."

"It's your fault, you were drinking."

"Everyone said, 'you let him in.' He had a badge. I wasn't having an affair."

"Here's £1 for not crying."

"Looking at you makes me feel like that. I'm a man, I can't help it."

"I was told it was part of my culture. They said that to anyone who asked."

"If you tell anyone, you'll be in trouble as well."

"I was asked what I was wearing. Frayed trousers, baggy t-shirt and messy hair."

"Suck it up. It happened seventeen years ago."

He sat still in the cubicle, wondering what to write. Eventually, he wrote what Grunewald had told him.

"You were worst. Because of this, you will die worst."

He watched the woman take the notebook back and then she looked around.

"When I see all of you, I don't see someone who suffered. I see someone who has survived against some cruel people and I want to say I am proud that you gathered up the courage to come today."

She sat down on the stool as she picked up a folder. She stood up and looked at each of them in turn.

"You need to remember that the people who hurt you are cowards. They think they need to use violence to control you. This is _not_ love, this is _not_ lust. This is _violence_.

"Imagine someone going into a crowded area. A college campus, a shopping centre, a town square. They get a gun and shoot people. They do it because they need to feel power. Your abusers wanted to feel power. But we don't blame people caught up in shooting sprees.

"Why? Because abuse carries a stigma. Your abusers haven't just taken your virginity, they've taken your confidence, they've taken who you were."

She sat down and asked them to explain their situations when they were ready.

A girl's voice came from a cubicle on Bailey's far right. She said that her teacher had hurt her in Year Ten. He had also hurt four other girls in the class. He'd said it was their fault because they had short skirts. "We had to. It was the uniform. They couldn't be longer because we had long legs and our parents couldn't afford longer ones."

Bailey listened to her with empathy.

Maybe here he could finally say what had been troubling him.

Soon, he heard about parents, babysitters, uncles, grandfathers, stepparents, teachers, spouses, friends, acquaintances, doctors, policemen and even complete strangers.

When it got to his turn, his throat seemed to close up. He gulped, squeezed his eyes tight and then told them.

"I'm Bailey Wharton. In the summer holidays, I was in Paris, with my care home. I was kidnapped by serial killer Klaus Grunewald." He breathed out and he could tell everyone was thinking of last summer.

He went on to say what had happened. He choked up at some points, but they were all patient and waiting for him. When he finished, the woman on the stool nodded.

"See, everyone, Bailey has overcome one of the worst evils in our modern world. There are people like Grunewald all over the world, in all different classes and societies.

"Penny, you were attacked by your riding instructor up in Cumbria when you were a child. Skye, you were hurt by your babysitter down in Stoke Newington. Heavenly, you were hurt by your teacher in Bracknell. Rebecca, you were the victim of a violent friend in Aylesbury.

"Fatima, you were attacked by your father, uncle and brother and then your husband, all before the age of twenty-one. Betty, you were the victim of a violent burglary at the age of sixty-four. Mackenzie, you were attacked by a doctor.

"Many of your abusers did not set out to kill people. But people like Bailey's abuser do. We've seen the stories. Grunewald was arrested in March 2013; a month before, the serial killer couple Seymour Francis and Caroline Bellamy were arrested for kidnapping Hannah Deschamps and well, does anyone remember what happened?"

A woman asked, "They found seven bodies in the garden? I remember three were adults they used in identity fraud."

The woman nodded. "The house uncovered secrets from a decade back. Remember Sieghild Hellewege-Accaci from Belgium? Or Pierre Leroy in a small town near Bordeaux in France? They were responsible for both of them.

"And only a few months later, that serial killer from up in Denmark was uncovered. One boy he'd attacked back in 1995 was treated badly by the village. The boy was given an apology, but he'd suffered twenty years of pain from everyone that he knew.

"What we must teach others is that we are _not_ guilty."

 **A/N: If you know anyone who has suffered, please remember to call your nearest police station or a helpline.**


	9. The Final Dream

**A/N: I am really sorry for the last chapter. I hoped to be surprising, but I just ruined it. I hope you accept my apologies and enjoy my final version.**

Mike couldn't believe it. The verdict for Aidan's death had come from an officer, who had sat in the office while Mike read it.

Aidan's death was ruled accidental.

The officer had said, as Mike read it, "We double-checked on what we had read and had another look at the autopsy. As you can see, because of mud stains on Aidan's knees, doubled with splinters in his hands, we believe he fell down the cliff."

Mike was lost for words. He stammered, "But – what about the signs of sexual assault?"

The officer raised his hands in exasperation. "Animals could have dragged the body. There are a lot of foxes there, the farmers have severe locks on the hen-coops. I think foxes could have dragged the body and the clothes came off. He was most likely alive when he hit the ground, so they could have pulled at the pull-cord. Or it got caught in a log on the way down. Either way, you can rest easy. Aidan's death was a tragic accident."

As Tyler lay in bed upstairs, he felt himself begin to dream.

It was the hotel he'd been to in Paris. He could see children sitting on the sofas and standing around. All seemed happy and welcoming.

Grunewald's victims.

He asked, "What are you doing here?"

Felicidad came up to him, flicking his hair back as he did so. He was walking. Tyler guessed that he didn't need a wheelchair now.

"Well, we choose you because you were the most psychically aware. We had little choice, actually. Why do you think you're drawn to magic? The twins would have worked, but they were too young. We just wanted to tell someone. Someone who would know."

Gerald got up from the sofa and took Tyler's hand. He dragged him to the window and pointed down.

The view from the window was different. It was a street, with a huge crowd rallying around a grey van. They pulled the doors open and stormed inside.

Tyler looked back at Gerald. "Why are you showing me this? What's that?"

Torvald walked up to him, before placing an arm around Tyler's shoulder. "Grunewald is being attacked as he arrives back in Hamburg. The vigilantes are storming the van and when he finally comes to trial for what he did to your friends, he will be missing a vital part of his body."

Torvald had a small, cheeky grin on his face.

Then he walked back to the sofa and picked up Kevin, coming right back to where Tyler stood.

Torvald explained, "He's going to spend the rest of his life in prison. But we need to tell you about Aidan."

Tyler was confused. "But – I didn't see him. What happened?"

Torvald looked at the floor, before back at the other boys. Then he walked away, Gerald following him, as Tyler looked out of the window.

A different scene lay below him. The New Forest. Johnny walking with Aidan. Tyler smiled. Johnny looked so young.

Johnny looked at the drop as he reached the edge, walking back slightly, setting the bag down on the grass.

Aidan groaned. "Can't believe I'm going to be out of his dump soon."

Johnny asked, "You are?" But Tyler could tell Johnny was being sarcastic.

Aidan had his back to Johnny as he carried on talking. "Though I don't like any of you. You're too snappy. Wanting your way, not mine. Nobody listens. Nobody ever listens to me. I want things, people just listen to me. Though you're going to leave when you're sixteen. Away from your sister. If I'm lucky, you'll never see her again."

Tyler watched as Johnny, frowning, ran forward and pushed.

Tyler watched in the deepest shock as Aidan fell down the cliff, catching his pull-cord on a log, before he fell into the water.

Tyler then watched Johnny climb down the tree, before doing so himself.

Tyler was just inches from Johnny as the boy began dragging Aidan's body to the bush. As he did so, the coat scuffed on the ground and the trousers began pulling down. Johnny pushed Aidan underneath, before running to the tree, not looking back.

Tyler couldn't believe it. How could Johnny, the good, loving boy, do this?

He knew why Johnny hadn't told. He might have been able to stand prison, especially if he admitted it was an accident. Everybody would have believed that; he didn't have a record and was a good child.

But Johnny would have been taken from Tee. That was why he kept this terrible secret.

He looked back at the boys. "Johnny murdered Aidan? Well, accidentally murdered him, but, what's going to happen to Johnny?"

Maurice replied, as he came up to the window, "Johnny will never tell." Everything went a shimmering, deep purple as Tyler saw small glimpses.

Maurice carried on commentating, as everything happened. "Johnny will see the newspaper and Ryan will show Tee your confession. She will burn it and everyone will think Aidan died accidentally. Mike will feel bad about letting them walk off without an adult, but he couldn't have done anything. Johnny and Ryan and Tee will keep this a secret for the rest of their lives. When Johnny faces the Pearly Gates, he won't be punished."

Then Maurice sighed. Tyler saw the image change and it was a picture of Maurice's gravestone, with flowers planted around it. The dates; 11th July 1990 – 27th September 2005.

Another one appeared and Tyler saw Edward by them. His gravestone read 30th September 1988 – 15th June 2002.

Then little Kevin peeked his head over the top of the window. A set of boys standing on benches. "That was my troop graduating," he said to Tyler, as Tyler looked at the placard.

"Class of 2010." He read.

Kevin nodded. "The Cubs graduate when they're ten and a half. I don't look it, but I'm only two years older than you and Gerald's three years older than you."

He smiled. "So you'd better do what we say!" he joked, giggling.

Daniel Fromm and Jacques Van Heel took it in turns to explain to Tyler.

"We watched over the boy in Saint-Etienne-du-Rovray. We were so happy when he got out. If we could have cried when Grunewald was arrested, we would."

"We sometimes notice his life. We try not to be jealous. He's going to start at his nearby _lycee_ next year. He decided to live his life for us. That's kind, but not really needed."

Joel told Tyler, "You're going to wake soon. Just remember, Johnny is not guilty. You don't need to be angry with him. Everything will work out."

As it faded and Tyler opened his eyes, he breathed deeply. The mystery was over. But he knew that he wouldn't tell anyone. Because if he did and Johnny's fate could be changed, it might get much worse.


End file.
